Heaven Knows
by proudmarveltrash
Summary: Lockpick is notorious in the underworld while the woman behind the screen is unknown to all but herself, until Charlie decides S.H.I.E.L.D's hidden files Project PEGASUS and Avengers Initiative are too interesting to ignore. For the first time ever, she risks her anonymity to investigate the matter up close and personal. Slight Tony/OC
1. Prologue

**Heaven Knows**

**Prologue**

Normal is boring. Every angst-riddled teenager has declared it, every responsibility-addled adult has denied it, but the simple truth is that normal is, in fact, boring.

This is the precise reason Charlotte Merrick dropped out of school at the ripe young age of 17 to pursue her passion of technology. She disappeared into the online persona of Lockpick, a hacker that had no difficulty breaking into the most secure facilities. "No lock is without a key," she would say- or rather type out- to her clients when they asked just how she managed to obtain the information she did. Nobody knew who she was, where she came from, or how she did what she did. Nobody truly cared, either- save the people she stole from.

How does any of this relate to S.H.I.E.L.D or the Avengers Initiative? Simple- it doesn't. At least it wouldn't, if dear Charlie didn't find them so damn interesting. "Curiosity killed the cat, Mister Pick," her (semi-) partner in crime, Gatekeeper, would inform her the day she hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D's Project PEGASUS files under the guise of one security clearance Level 8 Agent Reed.

"Good thing I'm not a cat," she laughed as she typed her response and closed the private chat window. It wasn't that she didn't trust Gatekeeper to stay away from the S.H.I.E.L.D files on her hard drive, she just… Right, she didn't trust Gatekeeper to stay away from the S.H.I.E.L.D files on her hard drive, and she knew that he would understand this, even if he was a bit put off by the fact that she kept quite a bit secret from him. Gatekeeper didn't even know that 'Mister Pick' was in fact a 'Miss Pick'.

Back to the S.H.I.E.L.D files. Charlotte, affectionately called Charlie (by herself, as nobody else knew her real name), skimmed through these Project PEGASUS files, a cherry flavored Blow Pop hanging lazily from her lips as she tapped her fingers absent-mindedly on her keyboard to the beat of 'La Di Da' by the Victorian Halls. She read about the Tesseract, S.H.I.E.L.D's plans to use it for green, reusable energy, and perked an eyebrow at the mention of two Norse gods' visit to New Mexico a few months ago. "Gods, huh?" she remarked to nobody in particular. "Swanky."

Normal is boring. This very thought was on Charlie's mind as she shut down her computer and shoved her feet into her black combat boots. She packed a bag with her favorite homemade laptop and a handful of her favorite lollipops before leaving her shack of a home to investigate this Project PEGASUS further, and up close.


	2. Chapter One: Tactfully Reckless

**Chapter One: Tactfully Reckless**

I pulled my Jeep over to the side of the road well out of sight of the out-of-the-way S.H.I.E.L.D facility and double-checked my phone to make sure this was the place. Pinpointing the location of Project PEGASUS was almost painfully simple after I finished hacking into their systems- so simple in fact that I had half-considered not even coming. When I saw the well-lit tower in the middle of the desert, however, I smiled to myself, glad that I was smart enough to ignore my second guesses.

"Well, well," I sighed into the night air. Talking to myself became a habit shortly after I decided talking to other people was rarely worth my time. "What _do_ we have here?"

I had changed into a classy, black business suit that I got from a store on the way here, and was now pinning a S.H.I.E.L.D issue I.D card onto the front of the blazer as I snuck around to the back of the building. Even though the I.D card was sure to be functional, as nothing I ever did was half-assed, I didn't want to risk entering the front door for fear of a doorman accusing me of not belonging there.

As I entered through the unlocked door (Note to Self: S.H.I.E.L.D agents are stupidly cocky), I straightened my back and walked with an air of confidence that said I belonged there just as much as, if not more than, anybody else in the building. The first thing I noted was that agents were rushing to and from the building in a hurry. Furrowing my eyebrows slightly, I grabbed the nearest girl's sleeve and pulled her back to myself. She looked up at me with a slightly frightened expression, and I almost smirked knowing that she would undoubtedly tell me anything I needed to know.

What simple-minded people.

"Where do you think you're going?" I demanded to know, my voice low with a strong tone of authority. It was better than asking what she was doing- that would make it too obvious that I hadn't gotten the orders and she most probably wouldn't tell me then.

"I-I-I-" she stuttered for a moment before gripping the box she was holding tighter to her chest and taking a quick breath, "I'm helping evacuate the Phase Two equipment, Agent…" she glanced at my I.D badge before correcting herself, "Agent Reed. Why aren't you helping?"

"Classified." I released her with a little shove and continued down the corridor. Phase Two, huh? There was nothing about that in any of the files I had read, although I knew Phase One involved the Tesseract.

"Sir, evacuation may be futile," a concerned female voice sounded to my left and I glanced in her direction. Sir? Of the two men she walked with I deduced that the one with the eye patch must be her superior as he was the only other person I'd seen here who seemed to have any sense of authority.

"We should tell them to go back to sleep?" he almost scoffed, and I followed behind them silently, wondering about why they were evacuating. From what I'd read, the Tesseract was a simple energy cube. Why would they be evacuating what was essentially a power plant?

"If we can't control the Tesseract's energy, there may not be a safe distance."

Ah. I turned back the way I came, slightly picking up the pace. I may have been curious about the cube from outer space, but I wasn't curious enough to die for the findings. I had almost made it all the way back to the way I had come in when the brunette agent from earlier called out to me. "Agent! With me, we're evacuating everything to do with Phase Two." I sighed and cursed under my breath before turning back to follow the woman to a group of crates with a big black '2' stamped on the side. "Get these out to the heli's and get off the premises." The other agents nodded and began following her instructions, so I simply followed them with a box now cradled against my chest, all the while silently screaming at myself for being so perfectly ordinary by allowing my curiosity to get the better of me by coming here.

Once out of the building, I slipped away from the other agents hoping to get back to my Jeep and out of this mess I had managed to find myself mixed up in. If I could get this crate back to my house, I could find out exactly what Phase Two was and most likely make some money by selling S.H.I.E.L.D their own secret. My plans were foiled, however, when the ground started to shake and I dropped the box on the hard cement, barely catching myself on the edge of one of the multiple cars in the lot. "Fuck," I muttered, backing up from the fissure line that was heading towards me.

A van came speeding out of the building and slowed down near one of the only other agents still left on the ground, and I recognized him as the man that was with Eye Patch Dude earlier, so I figured he was my best bet for getting out of this alive at the moment and leapt into the back of the van after him before it could get away. I landed rather uncomfortably on my side though, and sucked in a quick breath, gripping my right side. "You're clear sir, you need to go!" Eye Patch Dude's buddy said into a walkie before looking down at me laying in front of him. "Who are you?"

It only took me a moment to realize he was probably one of those guys who knew every single agent on base, and calculated that lying to him at this point was probably pointless as he would know that I wasn't an agent right away. Before I could respond though, a blast knocked into the van, slamming against one of the walls of the van. "Fuck me," I grunted in pain. "I just had to be a fucking cat."

"A what?" the man questioned before shaking his head, probably deciding that I was either insane or somehow affected by the blast and went back to talking into his walkie-talkie. "Director? Director Fury, do you copy?"

"The Tesseract is with the hostile force. I have men down. Hill?" Eye Patch Dude, who I took to be 'Director Fury', sounded over the walkie and I rolled my eyes at the fact that they let somebody get away with the cosmic cube.

"A lot of men are still under, don't know how many survivors." The brunette who foiled my escape earlier- must be Agent Hill.

"Sound the general call," Fury said, and the agent in the van glanced at me again as I tried to sit up before staring intently at the walkie in his hand. "I want every living soul not working rescue looking for that briefcase."

Hill replied, "Roger that."

"Coulson, get back to base. This is a Level Seven." At that, the man in the van with my straightened his back and I took that to mean two things. One, this was Agent Coulson. Two, Level Seven meant something bad. "As of right now, we are at war."

Oh. That's what it meant. Well, shit.

After a beat of silence, Coulson replied, "What do we do?" almost helplessly, and I got the feeling that he didn't sound like that often. That feeling only got stronger when nobody replied. He dropped the walkie and turned back to me and my heart leapt into my throat with the realization that he didn't plan on just ignoring my presence. "Who are you?" he asked again, this time his hand resting on his hip, which I could only assume had a gun strapped to it.

"Right, uh…" I glanced from him to the driver before coughing awkwardly and holding a hand out. "Veronica." Okay, it was a lie, but I wasn't about to tell a whack-a-doo in a suit who I actually was, especially not after I hacked into their systems and their base, conveniently on the same night it all decided to just explode. Seriously, fuck my luck.

"Veronica?" he repeated, tilting his head slightly with a hint of smirk that told me he knew I was bulshitting.

I shook my hand a little to remind him it was there before realizing he wasn't going to take it and dropped it. "Yup. So, Coulson, mind telling me where exactly this van is headed?" I sat up a little straighter and smiled at the man standing in front of me, hoping to appear more childish and innocent.

He watched me for another minute before sitting across from me and whispering something to the driver. When he turned back to me, I smiled a little brighter, and he shook his head. "How did you get on base, _Veronica_?" He clearly didn't believe that was my real name. Sucks for him.

"No, no," I waved a finger at him like I was scolding a child. "You can't answer a question with a question, that's not very polite."

He cracked a smile at that, and I felt quite accomplished. He didn't seem the type to smile often, so the fact that I made him grin even viewed as a potential threat gave me hope that my social skills hadn't gone to complete shit in the last few years of me not talking to people. "Alright. How about you tell me your real name and how you got here, and I'll tell you where we're going."

"You are a very fair man, Agent. Is that your real name, or is it just a title?" I waved a hand dismissively, "No, that's silly of me. I can't ask more questions before answering the previous ones. That's just confusing." The look he was giving me made me forget about his smile from earlier and I corrected myself that yes, my social skills actually _had_ gone to complete shit. "Right, my name and how I got here." I counted the answers on my fingers, "Charlie, I hacked your database- surprisingly easily, by the way, you may want to consider getting that fixed- and I got here with a-" I cut myself off with a loud gasp. "My car! Oh, shit. It's totally in a hole in the earth right now. Dammit." I loved my car, especially considering I had spent a lot of time making it pretty high-tech.

It was then I realized I had completely lost Coulson in my rambling. "You hacked our database?" he asked, and I nodded. "Who do you work for?"

I shook my head before remembering I had just slammed into the side of the van a few minutes ago, and stopped to rub my temples, soothing my oncoming headache. "Nobody, officially."

"What do you mean officially? You must-"

I held a hand up to quiet him. "Before you ask anything else, I believe you owe me at least one answer. Where are we going?"

He seemed to contemplate whether or not he should actually answer me for a moment before saying, "We're on our way to our New York Headquarters."

I nodded slowly, not wanting to hurt my head anymore. "Swanky. Would you mind just dropping me off at any old street corner in the city- though preferably one near a drug store? I could totally use some Aspirin right now, and I can just walk home."

"I'm afraid we can't do that, Charlie. See, you've admitted to hacking into our servers, which I can only assume to mean you know much more than you should about us. Therefore, you'll be joining me at S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters, and answering a few more questions."

That's what I was afraid of. "Well, Agent- can I call you Agent?" He nodded with another small smile and I smiled back before continuing. "Well, Agent, as marvelous as that sounds-"

The van came to a sudden stop, and I was cut off by the back door being suddenly pulled open by two men dressed in all black. "Agent Coulson," the one on the left started in an official tone, "Black Widow has been intentionally captured. If you still wish to extract her, now would be the most opportune time."

Coulson nodded at the man before turning back to me. "It seems I'm being called in, Charlie. I'm going to have to ask you to join these fine gentlemen as they escort you to a briefing room while I make a phone call."

Before I could protest, I was pulled from the van and being dragged towards the tall building. "See you in a few, Agent!" I called over my shoulder with a wink, which he shook his head at before pulling a cell phone out of his back pocket.

I was led through the building with my hands held behind my back until we reached a room that had only a table with three chairs, but was otherwise empty. "Wait here," one of the agents instructed before closing the door. I knew it would be locked, so I didn't even bother trying to leave before sitting in one of the two chairs facing the door, propping my feet up on the available one next to me.


	3. Chapter Two: Job Offer

**Chapter Two: Job Offer**

After his phone call, Coulson had joined me in the interrogation room and asked me questions about who I was, my life, where I received my training, who did I work for, how had I managed to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D, how did I get on the base without being noticed, where did I get my S.H.I.E.L.D ID from, how much did I know about Project PEGASUS, what else did I know that I wasn't supposed to. It went on for hours, and I went back and forth from answering truthfully to teasing Coulson and back to being truthful.

Sometime after midnight, according to how dark it was outside, Coulson was rubbing his temple to fend off a headache and muttered something about me being worse than Stark. "Tony Stark?" I laughed, uncrossing my arms to set my hands on the table.

He looked up at that, his eyes narrowing slightly. "You know him?"

I shrugged and brushed a piece of my hair back behind my ear. "Not personally. Everybody knows who he is though, especially with that new tower that has his name conveniently plastered across the front of it." I chuckled, shaking my head. "Seriously, that's going to get him in trouble someday. He should be more wary of people knowing where he lives."

Coulson smiled slightly at that. "So you're not a fan of Mr. Stark?"

I shrugged again, looking back from my hands to Coulson. "I have no real opinion on the guy, other than the fact that his genius is probably wasted on him."

It surprised me that Coulson laughed at that. After a moment, he calmed down and shook his head as if to clear it. "My boss would love you."

"Even though I broke into your systems and onto your property?" I quirked an eyebrow, but he only nodded.

"He'd probably love you even more for that. Nobody except Stark has ever been able to get into our servers. In fact…" he tapped his chin before excusing himself and leaving the room. I raised my other eyebrow at this, wondering where he had run off to now. He didn't seem like a frivolous guy at first, but I was quickly getting the impression that he didn't enjoy sharing his plans with other people before he actually did them.

A few minutes later, Coulson returned. "Ah, my main man Agent. Where did you-" I was cut off by another man entering after Coulson, who leaned back against the wall next to the door and crossed his arms over his chest. The man who came in behind him was none other than Eye Patch Dude. "Ah, Director Fury."

He didn't seem at all surprised that I knew who he was, he only sat in what had been Coulson's seat and watched me for a minute, probably expecting me to collapse under his watchful gaze. I only stared back coolly, waiting for him to speak first. "Charlie?"

"That would be me," I raised a hand and smiled at the man.

"I'm aware." Not a joker, then. How boring. "Agent Coulson here," he gestured behind himself, "has informed me that you were in New Mexico at the site of Project Pegasus last night."

"Mhmm," I nodded. "Yes, Agent and I have been getting along famously these last few hours."

He acted as if I hadn't spoken, simply continuing his little speech. He reminded me somewhat of a super villain with the way he monologued. "Clearly you weren't supposed to be there. Yet, somehow, you found your way on and off the base almost completely undetected. In fact, if you hadn't gotten in that van with Agent Coulson, we would never have known that you were ever there."

"Are you going to ask me how I got into your systems?" I sighed. I was tired of going over this. "Because I really doubt you would understand even if I did try to explain it to you."

"No, I don't care how you got into our systems." I raised my eyebrows slightly at that, surprised to hear him say that. "All I care about is the fact that you did. S.H.I.E.L.D has some of the most secure servers in the world, and the fact that you considered hacking us 'easy', if you were telling Coulson the truth-"

"It's almost sad, really-"

"-then what I'd like to see is how you would do if given access to our servers."

… "Okay, you've lost me, my man." I tilted my head, leaning back in my seat. "You find out I hacked my way into your system, and your reaction is to just give me free reign over what I've already seen?"

He shook his head, a small grin tugging at the edge of his lips. "What I'm offering you is a job, Charlie. What I want from you is to make our servers more secure, so that nobody can hack into them anymore." He stood from the chair, so I had to look up to see his face. "Coulson tells me that he's explained our little problem with Stark." I nodded once, and he smirked. "I'd appreciate if Stark couldn't see what we didn't want him to see anymore. So, I'd like for you to join us in making that much more difficult for him."

I was silent for a moment, tapping my forefinger to my pursed lips before inhaling through my nose. "So, what you're saying…" I stood and walked across the table to stand in front of Fury, not that it helped much. I was still at least a foot shorter than him and had to look up to see him. "…is that because I successfully outsmarted you, you want me to work for you?" It was his turn to nod, and I burst into a fit of laughter.

Coulson sighed, probably used to me at this point, but Fury took a small step back. "Yeah, rad, man!" I chuckled, and held my hand out for him to shake. "Sounds pretty solid to me."

Fury looked to Coulson for a second before turning back to me and taking my offered hand in his with a quick, firm shake. "I'm glad we could come to an agreement. Coulson will take you to be briefed on our current situation. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D, Charlie."

With that, he was gone off to what I assumed were bigger and better things. Coulson took a step towards the door before motioning for me to follow him, which I did, locking my hands behind my back. "So that's where you ran off to earlier," I smirked, falling into step beside him.

"Yes," he confirmed, nodding and glancing at me from the corner of his eye. "I figured you could help us out with our little Stark problem. It seemed preferable to having you…punished for breaking in."

I chuckled in agreement. "Well, Agent, I daresay this may be the blossoming of a beautiful flower of friendship."

He scoffed, but it didn't offend me. I knew he'd grow to love me eventually. Probably. "Your first mission starts now," he said as we stepped outside into a black SUV- what I assumed was a standard S.H.I.E.L.D vehicle.

"Swanky." I climbed into the backseat next to him. "Where are we off to?"

"Stark Tower."


	4. Chapter Three: JARVIS Hacking

**Chapter Three: JARVIS Hacking**

I stepped into the elevator at Stark Tower with Coulson, and pulled a cherry Blow Pop from my back pocket as he pulled his cell phone from his. He looked at me with a look of confusion as his phone rang, but I only shrugged and unwrapped my favorite candy before shoving the wrapper into my jeans pocket, the lollipop sitting tastefully in my mouth.

"Dammit, Stark," he muttered when the dial tone sounded from his small cell.

"Trouble in paradise?" I asked, pulling the sucker from my mouth and examined it.

"There's no such thing as paradise when Stark is involved," Coulson muttered, hitting the redial button only to get hung up on again.

I returned the lollipop to my mouth before holding a hand out. "May I?" He looked at me quizzically but handed me his phone anyway. I immediately typed in a few lines of code, and a British voice sounded in the elevator.

"Hello Agent Coulson, Miss. How may I help you?"

"JARVIS," Coulson sighed. "Tell Tony to answer his phone."

"I have, sir. I'm afraid he is currently with Miss Potts."

"Override that, JARVIS," I spoke aloud, staring curiously at the ceiling of the elevator to see if this apparent A.I system would be easy to hack into as I continued typing into Coulson's phone.

"Miss Pick," JARVIS replied, and I smirked as he used my codename, "I'm afraid I-" I typed in the final bit of code and his tone changed immediately. "I'll connect you to Mr. Stark immediately, Miss Pick."

"Please, call me Charlie!" I chuckled, smiling at the ceiling as Coulson turned to me and I handed his phone back to him.

"As you wish, Charlie."

Coulson looked like he was about to say something, but stopped when Tony Stark's face appeared on the screen of his phone. "Stark, we need to talk."

"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark." I covered my mouth to suppress a laugh, earning me a quick glare from Coulson, but he quickly turned back to his phone. "Please leave a message."

"This is urgent."

The elevator stopped and right as the doors opened, Stark replied, "Then leave it urgently." Coulson stepped out of the elevator, and I followed behind him. "Security breach!" Tony pointed to us before turning back to who a woman I recognized as Pepper Potts from the multiple magazines she had appeared in with Tony. "That's on you."

"Mr. Stark." Coulson stepped further into the room, tucking his manila file under one arm as he held the other out the approaching Pepper.

"Phil!" she smiled and shook his hand. "Come in. Who are you?" she asked, holding her hand out to me.

I shook her hand, but looked at Coulson instead of answering her question. "Phil?" I smirked, and he shook his head at me.

"Uh, his first name is Agent," Tony stepped closer to us, pointing towards Coulson.

"That's what I thought too," I replied, putting my hands on my hip and quirking an eyebrow at 'Phil'. "Do you mean to tell me that you've been letting me call you Agent this whole time knowing full well that wasn't your real name?" I gasped slightly, pulling the sucker from my mouth and pointing it towards him. "Unless Fury brainwashed you into thinking your real name was Agent, and you didn't know full well that you were lying to me!" I returned the Blow Pop to my mouth and shook my head. "The fiend. I knew I couldn't trust that eye patch of his."

Coulson sighed and ran a hand down his face, and Pepper looked at me warily- probably concerned for my mental state. Tony, however, just nodded. "Eye patches are never trustworthy," he agreed, finally seeming to notice my presence. "You wouldn't be another soul-sucker, would you? Because I only have one and it's hard enough keeping it away from Coulson here."

"No, nothing like that," I laughed, using one hand to keep the lollipop from falling out of my mouth and held the other one out to shake Stark's. "I'm Charlie- the one who convinced JARVIS to let Agent," I refused to call him Phil, "and I into your tower."

He narrowed his eyes slightly, "Ah, you're the one who turned my precious J against me."

Pepper interrupted, ushering us all further into the large living space. "Come in, we're celebrating."

"Which is why he can't stay," Tony turned back to Pepper momentarily before returning his gaze to me. "She can stay, if she explains how she stole JARVIS."

I held a Blow Pop out to him as a peace offering, and Coulson held out the folder he had tucked under his arm, but he only stared at them. "We need you to look this over."

"Candy," I said simply.

"Um, no. I don't like being handed things."

"That's alright," Pepper interrupted, "because I love to be handed things. So let's switch." She handed her champagne to Coulson, took his file, I took the champagne from Coulson and handed him the Blow Pop, Pepper took Tony's champagne and handed him the file, then took the Blow Pop from Coulson and sat on the couch unwrapping it as I drank her champagne, leaving Coulson standing utterly confused.

All I cared about was the fact that I now had candy and alcohol.

Tony walked away from the small group towards a table with glass computers, looking very unsatisfied with who ended up with what. "Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursdsay."

"Consulting hours?" I raised an eyebrow at Pepper who only shrugged as I sat next to her on the couch.

"This isn't a consultation," Coulson took a small step closer to the rest of us and folded his hands in front of himself.

"This is about the Avengers," I spoke up. Tony turned back to stare at me with a 'how-do-you-know-about-that?' look, Pepper stood from the couch to throw away the candy wrapper, and Coulson sighed for probably the millionth time since meeting me- which was really only a few hours ago. "Oh, Agent, don't act like you didn't already know I knew everything about the Avengers Initiative. I hacked you, remember?"

"You hacked S.H.I.E.L.D?" Pepper turned back from walking towards Tony (who suddenly looked a lot more interested in me) to face me before looking to Coulson. "She hacked S.H.I.E.L.D?"

"Now she can definitely stay," Tony smirked before turning back to his computers. "The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify."

"I didn't know that either," Pepper now stood next to Tony, looking over the screen with him, and I stood from my spot on the couch to join them, leaving Coulson behind the three of us.

Tony shrugged, "Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, and don't play well with others."

"That I did know."

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore," Coulson spoke up, finally rejoining the conversation.

"Whatever," Tony sighed dramatically before turning to me. "Mind giving me a moment with Miss Potts?"

I stepped back with a smile, removing the lollipop from my mouth the walk around the small room, inspecting all of the new age technology planted throughout the building. At the sound of a disappointed grunt, I turned back to see a smirking Pepper, a disgruntled Tony and a chuckling Coulson. "What'd I miss?" I raised an eyebrow, not enjoying being out of the loop.

"Why do you always have to bring up the strawberries?" Tony groaned, and I was even more confused than a moment ago.

Pepper patted Tony on the shoulder. "Work hard." She turned back to Coulson. "Mind giving me a lift to D.C?"

"Not a problem at all." Coulson agreed, and shot me a look before turning back to the elevator, Pepper and I following behind him.

"Hold on," Tony called, and I looked at him again. "You still haven't explained how you hacked into J." I laughed and shook my head, stepping onto the elevator. "I expect an answer next time I see you, missy!"


	5. Chapter Four: Meet and Greet

**Chapter Four: Meet and Greet**

After leaving Stark Tower, Coulson told me that he was going to be taking a quinjet to pick up another member of the Avengers Initiative. When I asked him why he couldn't just send a car like a normal person, he just smirked. I probably didn't want to know the answer anyway.

While Coulson was sent off to do that, I was sent on a separate quinjet to something called a Helicarrier. Which was absolutely, positively thrilling. And terrifying. I wasn't positive how I felt about being 30,000 feet in the air, but I figured if it was made by S.H.I.E.L.D, I probably wouldn't die. Probably.

Skipping through the main bridge, I got some funny looks. Probably because I wasn't dressed like any of the other agents. I was wearing light wash jeans with black combat boots and a loose white button-up, skipping down the hallways with my signature cherry flavored Blow Pop hanging from my mouth. "PATCHES!" I shouted as I reached a large glass table, and Fury turned from the monitors he was standing at to shake his head at me.

"Charlie," he greeted, stepping down from his little platform.

"S'going on, my man?" I questioned, holding out a lollipop. He shook his head, so I shrugged and placed it in my shirt pocket for later. "I'm pumped to get to work on your computers. Where do you need me?"

"Agent Hill will show you to our lab. You'll not only be helping to secure our servers, you'll also be helping to locate the Tesseract." I pulled the sucker from my mouth the protest, but he silenced me with a hand. "I'm aware you don't have any experience with gamma radiation, but you do have more experience than anyone else aboard this ship with computers. I have an expert on gamma radiation on his way in to help you, so you'll be working with him and Stark to locate the Tesseract. Before Stark gets here, however, I'd like you to make sure he isn't able to access anything except the Tesseract information. Understood?"

"Aye, Captain!" I saluted before marching after Agent Hill. I could hear Fury sigh behind me and mumble something about all geniuses being sarcastic assholes, which made me chuckle. Hill stood in front of a door that opened automatically, and led me into a small white room filled with papers on clipboards and Stark Industries computers scattered around.

"This is where you'll be working. When Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark arrive, we'll send them your way."

"Thanks, Mounty." She looked at me skeptically, so I explained. "You're Agent Hill. I can't call you Agent, that's Coulson's name. I can't call you Hill, that's boring. Can't call you Hilly, that sounds much too bleached-blonde-tiny-dog-valley-girl for your personality. Mountains are like giant hills, and you remind me of a mountain, very tall, very still. Can't call you Mountainy, that's a mouthful. Mounty." I smiled and nodded, satisfied, but she clearly thought I was insane.

"Why can't you just call me Agent Hill?"

I laughed and patted her shoulder before turning to the computer closest to me and booted it up. "Don't be silly, Mounty." I could tell she wasn't pleased with the nickname, but she didn't acknowledge it further. She only turned and left the room, leaving me to my work. "Right, then. This is already boring."

I pulled my phone out, which I got back from Coulson after our initial bout of him thinking I was a threat to S.H.I.E.L.D and me actually getting employed by them. Scrolling through my music playlist, I finally settled on 'You're Gonna Go Far, Kid' by The Offspring and connected it to the computer so the music could fill the lab as I set up the program to block Stark out of S.H.I.E.L.D's more cryptic files.

It only took me about half an hour to have the program self-running, leaving me very bored.

I don't like being bored.

Which is why when the Helicarrier started to lift into the sky, I ran to the nearest window and watched as we raised from the ocean. I expected it because of Coulson's explanation, but it was still unbelievable to watch as we got further and further from the water until we were well above the clouds. "Swanky," I whispered to myself. I watched for a while until movement to my right caught my eye, and I saw that new people were walking onto the bridge to talk with Fury. "Ooh, new people," I smiled to myself, hurrying to turn the music off on my phone before disconnecting it and returning it to my back pocket, unwrapping a new lollipop at the same time and shoving it into my mouth as I left the lab.

I skipped down the hallway, and heard Fury tell a man in a purple button-up, who I recognized as Bruce Banner from the Avengers Initiative files, "Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."

"Where are you with that?" Banner asked, wiping his glasses of on his shirt and I chose to jump in before Coulson could say anything.

"AGENT!" I shouted before running and jumping on Coulson's back, my arms wrapped around his neck. He probably would've fallen over if I wasn't so tiny. "I missed you! Everyone here is so stuffy- no offense Mounty, Patches. Next time you go on a mission, bring me, okay?"

The room was completely silent as everyone stared at me hanging off of Coulson, one arm wrapped around his neck to hold the lollipop in my mouth. Even the agents who were supposed to be tracking the Tesseract and whoever took it had turned to stare at me. I took this quiet time to see who all had arrived. There was Fury, who had his eyes closed and was rubbing his forehead in exasperation. Bruce Banner, who had frozen with his glasses halfway on his face. Steve Rogers, a.k.a Captain America (swanky, they actually got him out of the ice!) who looked almost afraid of me. Finally, Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a Black Widow, who was standing with her arms locked behind her back and one eyebrow raised in a mixture of surprise and amusement.

"Charlie." Coulson broke the silence in a gentle, but firm voice.

"Yes, Agent?" I rested my head on his shoulder to meet his eyes

"Would you kindly climb off of me now?"

"Of course, Agent. If you promise to bring me on your next mission."

"Charlie." This time it was Fury who addressed me, and I picked me head up to meet his eyes. Eye.

"Yes, Patches?"

"You should be in your lab."

I nodded and pulled the sucker out of my mouth to examine it and purse my lips. "I got bored."

"I promise to bring you on my next mission, Charlie," Coulson pulled my attention back to him. "Now get down. Please."

"That's all I wanted!" I laughed and dropped from his back to walk in front of him. Once I was off of him, the other agents in the room slowly turned back to their work, some muttering about 'who the hell is the kid?' I am not a kid. "Do you want a lollipop?" He opened his mouth to answer, but I cut him off. "No, of course you don't. You never want a lollipop." I turned from him to face the three people I had yet to introduce myself to. "To answer your question Dr. Banner," I smiled at the purple-shirted man and stepped forward slightly, "S.H.I.E.L.D is currently sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops and such. Eyes and ears of the world, you could call it."

Natasha, the one who seemed the least affected by my little outburst, spoke up. "That's not gonna find them in time. Charlie, right?" She stepped forward with one hand extended and I stuck a lollipop in it.

"Right. And you're Natasha Romanoff." She nodded, her friendly demeanor shifting ever so slightly into one a little more wary, and it wasn't until then that I realized I was probably scaring these people. Which made me laugh. Which, in hindsight, probably made them even more afraid of me.

Steve decided to be the brave one and ask what everyone was probably thinking. "Does anybody care to explain who this is? She wasn't in the file."

"What?" I gasped, a hand flying to my chest as I turned to glare at Fury. "Patches, you invite me onto your flying boat, make me do your dirty work and don't even have the decency to put me in the file? I'm very upset with you."

He ignored me for the most part, rolling his eyes- eye. "This is Charlie. She's our computers expert on board, and she'll be working with Dr. Banner to locate the Tesseract." I noticed that he left out that I was beefing up their security, which meant it was probably a secret. Funny how S.H.I.E.L.D seems to have more and more of those the longer I hang around them.

I also noticed that Bruce sent Fury a quick look when he mentioned that he was supposed to work with me. I had to suppress a smirk at that. He would love me eventually, just like Coulson. Coulson loves me, right? I'm positive he does by now. "Enough lollygagging!" I announced seriously, then chuckled to myself. "That's a funny word," I whispered to myself before plastering my serious face back on. "Right, enough of that!" Dear Lord, they're going to put me in a straitjacket. "Natasha's right, we don't have enough time to go through every camera. We need to narrow our field." I circled the glass table as I realized that my lollipop was gone. I threw the empty stick over my shoulder and grabbed the one I had given to Natasha back from her hand before unwrapping it and putting it in my mouth before making eye contact with Fury. "How many spectrometers do we have?"

"How many are there?" S.H.I.E.L.D. Always cocky, these ones.

Banner finally rejoined the conversation, "Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

Fury nodded at the doctor and turned back to me. "Charlie, would you take Dr. Banner to the lab, please?"

"Your wish is my command, Director Patches," I curtsied and rounded back around the table to smile at Bruce. "Come alone, young one." He followed behind me as I trotted back down the hallway, stopping to smile over my shoulder at Steve and Natasha. "Lovely to meet you two! I'll be seeing you around!"

With that, I was back in the small lab, but this time I wasn't alone.


	6. Chapter Five: Mischief Maker

**Chapter Five: Mischief Maker**

Bruce typed away almost mindlessly at his self-claimed station in the back of the lab near the window, every once in a while furrowing his eyebrows or shaking his head. I sat at on the table across the room from him, swinging my legs and enjoying my usual cherry Blow Pop. Seriously, how do people go ten minutes without one of these delectable treats? I watched the good doctor work for a couple hours, but he didn't seem to mind. Either that or he just didn't care. Probably used to being watched.

"So you're the one that turns green when he's angry right?" I asked, tilting my head.

His hand twitched slightly at the sudden question, but other than that he didn't react much. "Yeah, that would be me."

I nodded slowly, thinking a moment before my next question. "Why do you think that is?"

He scoffed at that, looking from the screen to me. "You know, I think you're the first person to ask me why instead of how."

I shrugged and jumped from the table to walk closer to him. "I know how. The gamma bomb exploded and you were too close. Anybody smart enough to work Google could figure that out." He seemed to chuckle a bit at that, and I smiled. "You have a nice laugh, very airy. It's cute." He stopped chuckling when I said that and cleared his throat, turning back to face the monitor. "You haven't answered my question."

"Which question was that again?"

"Why do you think you turn green when you're angry?"

He pulled off his glasses and set them on the table to rub his eyes. "I don't know why I turn into the… the Other Guy."

"That's not what I asked."

He seemed confused at that, and pushed the monitor back slightly before leaning his hip against the metal table, arms crossed over his chest. "You asked me why I turn into the Other Guy when I'm angry."

I shook my head and mimicked his stance, hip against the table, arms crossed over my chest. "No, I asked why you turn green. Why not purple? Or red? Red seems more appropriate for anger, doesn't it?"

He held my eyes for what seemed like ages before shaking his head as a laugh bubbled up from his throat. Laughing, he uncrossed his arms and continued to stare at me. "You…" He shook his head again, at a loss for words. "Gamma radiation is green. The gamma bomb…" He laughed again and ran his hands down his face. "You figure out that I turn into the Other Guy when I get angry and your only question is why I turn the color I do?"

I took a step forward and offered him a lollipop. "I don't care who you are when you're angry. Everybody is scarier when they're angry. I don't generally enjoy the company of angry people." He took the lollipop from me, and I shrugged as my arm fell to my side. "But not everybody turns green when they're angry. Gamma radiation, huh?" I asked rhetorically, nodding my head as if I understood. "Makes sense. Thanks, Brucey!"

When he was over his astonishment over my line of questioning he turned back to his screen and I walked back to mine, curiosity thoroughly sated for the time being. Seeing that my security and tracking programs were still running smoothly, I decided to check back in on the bridge.

Walking back down the hall, I heard Coulson say, "I mean, if it's not too much trouble."

"No, no it's fine." Entering the bridge, I saw that it was Steve who had answered him.

Coulson nodded before turning back to Steve. "It's a vintage set." I raised an eyebrow and stopped walking. What was he on about now? "It took me a couple of years to collect them all." Pokémon? "Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but…" Oh, trading cards, huh? Wonder what he wants Steve to do with them.

"We got a hit!" I stepped up next to Coulson at this, interested in where the Tesseract was. He only glanced at me before turning back to the agent who had announced it found. "Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, cross-match… seventy-nine percent."

"Location?" Coulson called, and I found myself drifting closer to Fury.

"Stuttgart, Germany," the agent called back after glancing down at his monitor. "28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

"Maybe it's his turn to seek," I shrugged, and Fury's head lowered the slightest bit at the sound of me behind him. How rude.

"Captain," he turned around and ignored me to point at Steve behind me, "you're up."

I looked behind me just in time to see a quick nod from Steve before he left down the hallway I had entered from. I looked back to Fury with my brightest smile. "Do I get to go?"

He looked at me like I was crazy. Again, rude. "You're a computer expert. Not a soldier. You're not to leave this Helicarrier, understood?"

"Aye, Director Patches," I saluted before following after Steve, thankful that wherever he was going led down the same corridor as the lab. When I was sure nobody back at the bridge was listening, I shouted, "Steve!"

He turned back to face me, but kept walking forward. "I'm kind of in a hurry, Miss Charlie."

I caught up to him, having to jog to match his pace. How exhausting. "I know, but I'm going with you." He looked at me questioningly, so I quickly continued to convince him. "Fury wants me to go with you on the quinjet because I speak German." He didn't need to know that I struggled enough with English as it was. "I'm going as a just-in-case translator. I won't leave the quinjet, I won't be anywhere near the fighting."

"Fury said this?" he questioned again, and I nodded. He pushed open a door leading into a locker room. "Okay. Do you have a suit?"

"I, uh…" I looked down at my button-up and jeans combination. "I have a jacket." He had his back turned to me, but I could practically hear his eyes rolling.

"Then suit up, quickly. We're leaving now."

I sprinted back to the lab and grabbed my jacket before hurrying back to where Steve was leaving. I heard Bruce start to ask a question- probably where I was going- but I didn't trust Steve to actually wait for me so I ignored him and made a mental note to explain when I got back.

I made it onto the quinjet right before the door closed, panting as I dropped into the seat across from Steve. I could tell he didn't really believe I was supposed to be there, but I thanked him silently when he didn't bring it up again.

It didn't take long to get to where we (well, Steve and Natasha) were supposed to be, and once there I could hear a man's voice. I could tell he was the villain by his obnoxious monologuing.

"-for identity! You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

I scoffed, until I heard another man's voice. This one had a thick German accent. Must be one of the bystanders. "Not to men like you."

Oh. Oh no. No, villains don't take kindly to people who don't listen to them, Mr. Man.

"There are no men like me," the villain, Loki, said, and I already hated his smug voice. I remembered his face from the files I had read a while back and hated his smug face, too.

"There are always men like you."

"Look to your elder, people." Please don't hurt an old man. "Let him be an example."

What an asshat. "Steve, you might wanna-"

"On it." The back of the jet opened, and I watched over the edge as he dropped in time to deflect the shot to the old man.

"You rock, Cap!" I shouted after him, but either he didn't hear me or he was too focused on Loki to acknowledge my vote of confidence.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everyone else, we ended up disagreeing." Ha. World War Two jokes.

Natasha turned the plane around to point the guns at Loki, and I stumbled around. I probably should've stayed in my seat because as she turned the quinjet I tumbled out the back and landed in a heap next to the kneeling crowd. "Ow," I groaned, holding my side, eyes clenched shut. Why is it that ever since I met Coulson, I keep hitting hard things? I would have to have a stern talk with him about him being a bad omen.

"The soldier," Loki taunted, turning to face Steve. "A man out of time." He glanced behind the super soldier to smirk at me. "And apparently a little girl out of her element."

Steve ignored the slight towards me and stepped forward. "I'm not the one who's out of time."

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down," Natasha's voice sounded over the quinjet's speakers.

Faster than my eyes could comprehend, Loki had sent a bolt of blue… something or other at the quinjet. Luckily I wasn't piloting though, Natasha was, and she managed to evade it just in time. This gave Steve long enough to throw his shield at the Asgardian, which he dodged and they began to fist fight. Seriously- the Norse god versus the super soldier from the Great Depression. I wonder how much I could sell tickets to a fight like this for.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by Loki knocking Steve to the ground and pointing his scepter down towards his chest. "Kneel." No, no, no, not on my watch.

I forced myself to stand and called out, "Hey, Loki!" He glanced up long enough for Steve to kick him in the leg, and then they were both on the ground rolling around. I moved to help Steve, but before I could make it two steps, AC/DC's 'Shoot to Thrill' was blasting through the quinjet's speakers. "I didn't take you for an AC/DC kinda gal!" I shouted at the quinjet, only to see the Iron Man suit next to it. "Ah," I said to myself, "that makes more sense."

"Agent Romanoff," Tony's mechanical voice sounded from the suit, "did you miss me?" He touched down without waiting for an answer, and glanced at me as he walked past. "You still owe me and JARVIS an apology for the other night." I laughed as he passed me, but stopped when I realized how much it hurt my sides. I landed harder than I thought, I guess. He held his arms up towards Loki, who had been disentangled from Steve, and at least six different weapons were suddenly pointed at him from the suit. "Make your move, Reindeer Games."

He held his hands up in surrender, and his medieval looking armor shifted into more, for lack of a better term, human looking apparel. "Good move," Tony remarked, and you could basically hear him smirking.

"Mr. Stark," Steve acknowledged the new arrival to our little group.

"Captain."

Steve then turned to me, one eyebrow raised as he gave me a once over. "Just-in-case translator, huh?"

I shrugged and hugged my black leather jacket tighter to myself, fighting the cold air. "I may have stretched the truth a bit. Or lied completely."

Steve didn't say anything else as he led Loki onto the quinjet. Tony turned to face me, the mask of his suit lifting to reveal his actual face underneath, and I could see the smirk I had assumed was there since he landed. "Translator? I thought you were a hacker."

I shrugged again and smiled. "I'm a woman of many talents."

"Clearly," he laughed and gestured for me board the jet. I curtsied slightly before climbing onto the machine I had recently tumbled out of. I was sure to strap the belt over my lap as I sat this time, not willing to risk falling out again.

The jet took off, Steve and Tony standing, Loki sitting across from me, and Natasha piloting.

"You're not going to fall out again, are you?" the redhead called back to me, and I rolled my eyes even though she couldn't see.


	7. Chapter Six: Children

**Chapter Six: Children**

I had my head leaning back against the wall of the quinjet, my eyes closed. After getting tired of Loki staring at me with a small smirk on his face, I decided to ignore him. Creep.

"Not a word," Natasha said in response to nobody, so I just assumed she was talking to somebody that wasn't on the jet. Probably Patches.

"I don't like it," Steve whispered, and I opened my eyes to see him shaking his head.

"What, Rock of Ages giving up so easily?" Tony eyed the super soldier questioningly and I laughed, closing my eyes again.

"You call that easily? I have at least two bruised ribs that would disagree with you whole heartedly."

"He didn't make you fall out of a jet."

I opened my eyes again to glare at Stark. "No candy for you."

He rolled his eyes, and Steve brought us back to the important conversation. "I don't remember it being so easy. This guy packs a wallop."

Tony nodded before exaggeratedly looking Steve over. "Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow. What's your thing, pilates?"

I snorted, and Steve turned to me. "What?"

"It's like calisthenics," Tony continued. "You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle."

That seemed to irk Steve, as he turned to Tony with his arms crossed. "Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in."

"When does Patches tell anybody anything useful?"

"Thank you," Tony agreed with a gesture towards me, though he kept his eyes on Steve.

Thunder sounded, and I sat up straight, glancing out the front window. Natasha mumbled something about what was going on, and I undid my safety belt to get a better look outside. "What's the matter, afraid of a little lightning?" Thinking he was mocking me, I turned back to yell at him but saw that he was in fact mocking Loki. Oh, yeah, I could totally get behind that.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," he responded coolly, staring at the ceiling of the jet.

Wait a second… The events of New Mexico (the ones I read about, not the ones I was present for) ran back through my mind and I sighed dramatically. "Is your brother throwing a temper tantrum?"

Loki's eyes immediately snapped to mine, an icy glare. Touchy subject, I take it. He looked like he was about to respond but didn't get the chance as a loud thump sounded before the back of the jet lowered to reveal a man in silver armor with a red cape landed, lightning flashing behind him. I recognized him as Thor, but didn't have a chance to call out to him before he had his hand around Loki's throat, and then he was gone.

"Now there's that guy," Tony complained before putting his helmet back on and stepping towards the exit Thor had opened.

"Another Asgardian," I told him. "Loki's brother."

"Think he's another friendly?" Steve questioned, although I could tell he doubted it.

"Doesn't matter," Tony disregarded all further arguments. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost."

"Stark, we need a plan of attack!" Steve stepped forward to stop Tony but didn't get the chance.

"I have a plan. Attack." With that, he jumped from the jet and I shook my head.

Steve grabbed a parachute to follow Tony, and Natasha called back, "I'd sit this one out, Cap."

"You really think that'll convince him?" I asked the redhead, but she ignored me, staring intently at the blonde man who was stepping closer to the exit.

"These guys come from legends, they're basically gods!"

"There's only one God ma'am," Steve finished fastening the parachute and glanced back at us, "and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."

He jumped out to follow the Asgardians and Tony, and I clutched the wall as tightly as I could. A fall from this height would definitely give me more than a few bruised ribs. "Dammit," Natasha sighed. "Alright, Charlie, I'm gonna have to land this and go after them. You stay on the jet, understood?"

"You think you can convince those testosterone-fueled idiots to back down by yourself?" I laughed, shaking my head at her. "No way."

She didn't say anything else, and I knew that she wouldn't tell me to stay again. She was smart enough to know it was useless. I was liking her more and more.

We landed the quinjet a bit away from the sounds of shouting and metal clashing. "Plan B," I told Natasha as she unstrapped herself from the pilot seat. "You go get the guy in green that these little shits were dumb enough to leave unattended, and I'll deal with the squabbling children."

She almost argued but decided against it, probably not trusting me around Loki, but I was thankful for the compliance regardless as she nodded her consent to the plan. "Got it. Go grab the boys."

"Your wish is my command," I bowed out of the jet, and started towards the three men who stood in a circle facing each other.

"You want me to put the hammer down?!" a voice I didn't recognize boomed, and I could only assume that the thunder-like voice (puns for days) belonged to Thor.

I stepped into the small clearing to see Thor raising his hammer and Steve lifting his shield to protect himself. Seeing what was about to happen, I screamed at the top of my lungs. "BOYS!" The three of them froze, turning to face me standing there with my hands on my hips. "What in the name of all that is good do you three idiots think you are doing?" Tony raised a mechanical finger and I could tell he was about to argue the 'idiot' comment, but I shut him up with a glare so fierce he would have dropped dead if looks could kill. "I want you three to get your asses back on that quinjet," I pointed a finger in the direction of the jet, my eyes never leaving the boys, "place yourself in separate corners, and think about what you did."

They stood motionless for another moment and I was about to scream again but was cut off by quiet laughter behind me. I whipped back around to see Natasha standing there with a chuckling Loki. I narrowed my eyes at the god of mischief. "And you, young man." He stopped laughing and raised an eyebrow. "You are going to get back in your seat, you are going to sit quietly, and you are going to think about just how rude you were to those nice people back in Germany. Do you understand me?" He pursed his lips before opening them and I stepped forward, pulling the last Blow Pop I had on my person from my shirt pocket and opened it before shoving the wrapper in his mouth. "Good. Now, Natasha," I looked to the right of Loki to see Natasha's lips twitching, like she was holding back laughter. "I would greatly appreciate if you would escort Loki back to his spot on the jet." She nodded, seeming all too happy to comply as she returned the way she came, a furious looking Loki in tow.

I turned back to the three boys behind me with an expectant look on my face. "Well?"

They hurried after Natasha, and when I made my way back onto the quinjet I was glad to see that the boys had done as I asked and separated themselves into different corners. "Isn't everything much more relaxed this way?" I sighed happily before taking my seat in between Thor and Tony, Steve in the corner opposite of Loki. After strapping myself into the seat, I tapped the wall separating me from the pilot seat. "All set, Natasha."

The ride back to the Helicarrier was completely silent.


	8. Chapter Seven: Real Power

**Chapter Seven: Real Power**

When we landed on the Helicarrier, at least a dozen agents met us to escort Loki to where they would be keeping him. The rest of us stepped out and followed behind them, headed towards the bridge. Nobody said a word as we walked in. Steve and Natasha sat at opposite ends of the big glass table, Tony went off claiming he had to talk to Coulson about a cellist, and I leaned back against the railing of Fury's little podium, Thor standing on the other side of the podium. One of the screens at Fury's stand lit up to show Patches himself circling Loki's glass cage.

"In case it's unclear," Fury half-yelled at Loki, and I turned to rest my elbows on the railing, watching the show, "you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass?" He pressed a button on a control panel in front of the cage and the sound of wind rushed in from under Loki, who looked down nonchalantly. "30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You see how that works?" He pressed the button again, and the hatch closed. Loki looked back to Fury, who was pointing at the god with both hands. "Ant." He moved his hands back towards the button. "Boot."

I didn't understand the reference, but it still made me chuckle under my breath to see Loki get yelled at.

Loki didn't seem phased though, he only smirked and nodded, looking around slightly. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

Stronger than Loki? I looked back to question Steve or Natasha but saw Bruce standing there with his arms crossed, and didn't have to ask anymore. Right. Green dude. I turned back to the screen and a chill ran down my spine when I made direct eye contact with Loki, who was staring into the camera. "I've heard." He returned his gaze to Fury. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" When his eyes returned to the camera, I almost looked away. "Creatures who are unable to defend even themselves."

Ouch, my pride. I knew Fury was going to yell at me for going on the mission later, I didn't really need Loki rubbing it in my face that I was kind of useless out there too.

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me _very _desperate. You might not be glad you did."

"Ooh," Loki sucked in a breath and shook his head, "it burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what _real_ power is."

Fury chuckled as he walked out of the room, calling over his shoulder, "Yeah, well, you let me know if '_real power' _wants a magazine or something."

Before the screen turned black, Loki flashed one more smirk to the camera, and I turned away, having seen enough of him for one lifetime. It was silent for a few moments before Bruce spoke up. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

I shrugged at the doctor with a small, sarcastic smile. "I'd swipe right." Bruce, Steve and Thor all looked at me with confused looks. "Tinder. It's an app? It means- never mind, moving on!"

Steve stared at me for another second before turning back to the group. "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not from earth or any world known. He means to lead them against your people," he glanced at all of us before focusing again on Steve. "They will win him the earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army?" Steve paused, looking confused and a little scared. "From outer space?"

"So he's building another portal?" Banner stepped forward. "That's what he needs Selvig for."

Thor and I looked at the doctor and asked at the same time, "Selvig?" I remembered his name from the NM files.

Bruce looked between us before settling on me. "He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend," Thor sighed, and I felt bad for the guy. His brother obviously took him just to hurt him, and it was working. Again- asshat.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of our own," Natasha explained, and I tilted my head. I didn't know that a S.H.I.E.L.D agent had been flipped.

"What I want to know," I tapped my lips, wishing desperately for another lollipop but my stash was in the lab, "is why Loki came with us. I know it wasn't me shoving a candy wrapper in his mouth."

Bruce raised an eyebrow at this. "You… I'm not even surprised." He shook his head at me. "Regardless, I don't think we should be focused on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats- you can smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor's voice climbed slightly, and I unconsciously took a small step away from him. I may have yelled at the guy when he was preoccupied with Steve and Tony, but he was still almost the size of two of me. I never hated my short stature more than around this guy. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is still my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha deadpanned.

Thor looked less confident now, fidgeting as he replied. "He's adopted."

I burst into a fit of laughter, and all eyes turned to me. "What?" I shrugged. "It was funny."

"Iridium," Bruce said, and I mentally hugged him for not staring at me like I was crazy- which was quickly becoming more and more common around this certain group of individuals. "What did they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." A new voice joined the mixture as Tony walked in, Coulson in tow. He paused to whisper something to the only agent I felt really comfortable with around here before continuing on his path towards Thor and I. "Means the portal won't collapse in on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." He slapped Thor's shoulder, "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing." He stared at me for a moment before crossing his arms. "I'm waiting."

I mimicked his pose and tilted my head before smiling innocently. "For?" He raised an eyebrow, obviously not impressed with my attempt at pretending I didn't know what he was talking about. I sighed and dropped my arms, still smiling. "Alright, I'm sorry for temporarily stealing control of JARVIS."

"And?"

"And?" I repeated. This time I actually didn't know what he was talking about.

"The quinjet," he explained simply, and I laughed. Not the response he was expecting, I suppose.

"I'm not going to apologize for putting you in your place, Johnny Bravo."

He scoffed and stepped onto Fury's podium, glancing back at me for a moment. "You still owe an apology to JARVIS." Before I could respond, he pointed towards one of the agents sitting on the level below us. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He covered his left eye with his hand, and slipped his right hand into his jacket pocket. "How does Fury do this?

"He turns." I looked for the source of the voice and saw none other than-

"Mounty!" I exclaimed with a smile, and she shook her head, but I saw the little grin tugging at her lips. "Wonderful to see you again."

Tony ignored my little outburst and called back with a sigh, "Well that sounds exhausting." I turned back to him just in time to see his right hand coming out from under Fury's monitor, and a small smirk worked its way onto my mouth. I could call him out, but I'd rather see him get frustrated when he couldn't break down my firewalls.

I didn't realize he'd kept talking until Mounty scoffed. "When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night," he replied easily. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve said, obviously fed up with Stark's snark. I giggled to myself at my mental rhyme.

"He's got to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break the Coulomb barrier," Bruce answered.

Tony stepped away from the podium and towards the scientist. "Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, someone who speaks English!"

Steve looked more confused than anyone else in the room. "Is that what just happened?"

I shook my head, "No, I'm pretty sure that was Vulcan."

That didn't seem to clear up any confusion whatsoever for him. I tried, really, I did.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner." Tony and Bruce shook hands, and you could actually see the bromance surrounding them. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce looked down, and I wasn't sure if he was amused or annoyed, but he muttered a quick, "Thanks," either way.

Patches entered the bridge, back from talking to Loki apparently, and watched Stark with obvious annoyance. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube, along with Charlie. I was hoping you would join them."

"She's helping look for the cube?" Tony pointed at me before looking at me with what I could only call shock. I stuck my tongue out at him and he rolled his eyes before looking back to Fury. "And why is she just Charlie?"

"We should start with that stick of his," Steve suggested, fed up with Stark's antics. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that," Fury also ignored Stark, "but it's powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his own personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor furrowed his eyebrows, arms crossed over his chest. "I do not understand."

Steve pointed a finger to Thor and shouted, "I do!" We all stared at him in a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "I-I understood that reference."

I stepped forward and pat his head. "I'll give you a lollipop later." He narrowed his eyes at me, but I also saw the smile and nodded before returning my attention to the group.

"Shall we play, doctor?" Tony asked Bruce, who nodded, and turned back to me. "Coming, Tiny?"

As I followed the two men, I laughed. "Tiny? That's the best you can do?"

"Give me some time," he responded without looking back. "I'll figure you out."


	9. Chapter Eight: Job Description

**Chapter Eight: Job Description**

Back in the lab, Bruce returned to his monitor near the window and started running a gamma ray detection program. Tony took the monitor to the right of the one I had used earlier, and I returned to my seat on the table after stuffing my pockets with more lollipops from my bag, one already dangling from my mouth. Oh, sweet relief.

After a few minutes of scanning his program, Banner nodded. "The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process."

"We don't have weeks," I shook my head and dropped off the table before bumping Bruce out of the way with my hip. Taking over his monitor, I pulled up the properties of his scanning program and adjusted it while explaining what I was doing. "We can bypass the mainframe and reroute it directly to the cube's specific signature instead of waiting for it to find it on it's own." The monitor blipped, and I smiled in satisfaction. "There, that should only take an hour or so."

"And all I packed was a toothbrush," Bruce joked and I chuckled, twisting the stick of my lollipop between my forefinger and thumb as I skipped back to my own computer, bobbing my head to a song in my head.

Tony leaned back against the table under his monitor, smiling at me. "You know, you two should come to Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors? All R and D." He pointed at Bruce. "You'd love it." He turned and winked at me before gesturing to my pockets overflowing with Blow Pops. "It's candyland."

I laughed and pulled one of the suckers from my pockets before tossing it to Tony, who caught easily and in one quick motion had it unwrapped and in his mouth. "Thanks," Bruce answered his previous offer, "but last time I was in New York I sort of… broke… Harlem."

Tony stepped closer to me, but was looking at Bruce as he nodded seemingly understandingly. "Well, I promise a stress free environment. No stress, no surprises." He threw his balled up wrapper at Bruce and it smacked him right in between the eyes. I felt bad at laughing, but his scrunched up face was so adorable I couldn't help but shake my head jokingly at Tony.

"Nothing?" Tony asked incredulously. "Maybe I should've gone with this zappy stick." He pulled mentioned zappy stick almost out of thin air before poking my side with it.

"OW!" I yelped and slapped his arm. He only grinned mischievously and moved to poke me again, but I jumped back and nearly tripped on my own bag.

The sound of the automatic door opening was followed by a very irritated sounding Steve. "Hey! Are you two nuts?"

Tony ignored him as he walked over to Bruce, tapping the zappy stick against his own palm. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?"

I leaned down to the bag I had almost tripped on and pulled a lollipop out to hand to Steve. "Here, I owe you a Blow Pop." He only glanced at the candy before returning his gaze to Tony. "Rude," I mumbled, dropping it back into my bag.

"What's your secret?" Tony asked, circling Banner. "Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked, and I could almost feel the anger rolling off of him. Good thing Bruce had the Hulk mutation instead of Steve, or we'd all be in serious trouble.

"Funny things are," Tony acknowledged Steve for the first time, but immediately turned back to me and waved the lollipop he had been sucking on around in a circle. "These really are delicious, I understand why you're so obsessed with them."

Steve wasn't having any of it. "Threatening the lives of everyone on this ship isn't funny." I caught Bruce's twitch at that and lightly shoved Steve's arm. He looked back to see me gesturing towards Banner and he quickly added, "No offense, Doctor."

"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come on board if I couldn't handle candy wrappers or pointy things."

"You're tiptoeing big man," Tony 'tsked', shaking his head as he sauntered around the metal desk. "You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve demanded Tony's attention, and was finally awarded an answer. Not the one he was looking for, though.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us here _now_? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do an equation without all the variables."

This is what I had been hired for- to keep Stark away from those variables. However, listening to him now, I was beginning to question all those safety features I had installed.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked as if no commanding officer could possibly be hiding anything from their group.

I shook my head at his innocence and for one of the few times since I had been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D, I was serious. "Steve, Fury isn't just a spy. He's _the_ spy." The three men in the room looked at me, probably surprised to hear me call Fury anything that wasn't a silly nickname, "He wouldn't know honest if it slapped him upside the head."

"His secrets have secrets," Tony agreed, probably glad to have another person on his side. "Even Banner thinks it's weird. Right, Doctor?"

A beat of silence. "Doctor?" Steve questioned.

Bruce looked at each of us for a moment before sighing. "'A warm light for all mankind'. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."

"I heard it."

"Well," Bruce pointed at Tony, "I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news.

"The Stark Tower?" I furrowed my eyebrows, and began twisting the lollipop in my mouth again.

Steve scoffed slightly, "That big, ugly…" He trailed off at Tony's glare before clearing his throat, "…building in New York?"

"It's powered by Stark reactors, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what? A year?"

"That's just the prototype," Tony looked proud of himself. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

Bruce looked back to Steve, but held a hand out to point out that he was still talking about Tony. "So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

I was going to bring up that clean energy was only Phase One in their plan, but didn't have the chance to when Tony started tapping at his monitor again with a smug grin. "I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D's secure files." I walked away from Steve's side to return to my computer, carefully angling it away from the others in the room as I checked my security program to make sure it was still up and running. Even if I didn't trust S.H.I.E.L.D for much other than keeping me alive at the moment, it was still my job to keep Tony out of those files. At least for now. I glanced towards Stark, and saw him narrowing his eyes at his computer screen before fiddling with it. He hit the firewalls, then.

"I'm sorry," Steve sputtered, "did you just say…?"

Tony probably would've continued to tease Steve if he wasn't so busy trying to break into S.H.I.E.L.D. "JARVIS has been running it since… Dammit," he muttered before turning his full body to the screen.

Steve continued, less confused now as he returned to being angry. I'm going to get him a stress ball for Christmas. "Yet you're confused about why they don't want you around?"

I minimized the program that was flashing about an intruder so it wouldn't catch anyone's eye. "An intelligence agency that fears intelligence?" Tony spared Steve a glance before returning his concentration to his hacking. "Historically, not possible."

"Listen," I spoke up, and the other people in the room all jumped, probably having forgotten that I was in there, "Mischief Maker in there is obviously here for a reason, we all know that. Remember back in the field?" Bruce looked like he didn't. Right. He wasn't there. Oh, well. "You two and Thor left him unattended to go have your little bitch fit, but he didn't run off or teleport or whatever. He just sat there watching you. I assaulted him with a candy wrapper and he just glared. He wants us to get worked up."

"He means to start a war," Steve agreed. "We have our orders, we should follow them."

"Not exactly the point I was trying to get across," I muttered, but the others just went back to ignoring me.

Tony finally looked away from his screen, which worried me so I turned back to my program. "Following's not really my style," he smirked. How the fuck did he get past that first wall? I typed furiously, working on putting more in place and strengthening the ones that were already up.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?"

"Of the people in this room, which one of us is A) wearing a spangly outfit, and B) not of use?"

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"

"Just find the cube." The sound of the door opening and closing barely registered with me as I worked on keeping Tony out of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony scoffed. "Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

I blocked out their conversation, twirling my lollipop thoughtfully between my lips as my fingers flew across the screen.

Loki, something. Shrapnel, something. Heart, something. Hulk, something. Control, something.

"Charlie?"

My second wall was crumbling, how to strengthen it?

"Charlie."

Fuck! Okay, just forget about the third wall. I can risk that one and work on doubling the fourth wall.

"Tiny!"

I jumped and looked up to see Bruce and Tony staring at me. "Hmm?"

Bruce pushed his monitor to the side and leaned with his elbows on the table. "What are you working on? You look stressed."

I shrugged. Tony didn't seem to like that answer though, because he left his computer to come closer to his mine. "You're hiding something from us, Kiddo." Before I could stop him, he had pulled my monitor away from me to look over it. His eyes scanned from the top of the screen to the bottom before he shook his head. He pointed at the screen and looked back to me. "I thought you said you weren't another soul-sucker?"

Dammit. "I'm not," I chuckled. "I'm just a hacker."

He didn't seem to think it was funny. "Why are you working so hard to keep me out of S.H.I.E.L.D?"

"Wait, what?" Bruce spoke up from behind us, pushing away his computer. Now none of us were working on the Tesseract. "Fury said you were the computers expert on board."

I kept my eyes locked with Tony's, unwilling to be the first one to back down. "I am an expert. That's how I've been able to keep Johnny Bravo from breaking into things S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't want him in. They asked me to help track the Tesseract, but they hired me to make their security air tight." Tony was shaking his head, lips pursed. I just shrugged again. "It's in my job description to keep you out of the loop."

"Why?" he pressed, stepping closer to me. I had to look up to see him, and he knew that. And he enjoyed it. "What is so bad that S.H.I.E.L.D can't let me see it? Why the hell did they bring me here if they didn't want me to see what they were up to?"

"Because they knew that I would be able to keep you out of it. But-" I finally looked away from him to pull the screen closer to us, but he pushed it back away.

"Oh, no, Kiddo, I'm not letting you keep me out of here."

I narrowed my eyes at him and pulled the screen closer again. "If you would stop being an ass for two seconds-"

"Not possible."

"-you would see that I'm trying to-"

"Suck out my soul?"

I pulled my lollipop out of my mouth and threw it against the floor, making it shatter into tiny, red pieces. "_Shut up!" _He raised an eyebrow at that, glanced at the broken lollipop, and crossed his arms. "I am _trying _to shut my program down."

Well, he obviously wasn't expecting that. He took a step back from me and motioned dramatically to the computer. I looked at it for a moment, proud of my baby doing so well against JARVIS, before shutting it all down. "By the way," I glanced at Tony from the corner of my eye, "if you wanted S.H.I.E.L.D's files, you could have just asked. I have them all on a USB in my bag over there." I motioned to it with eyes before finishing shutting down the defenses I had set in place.

"Okay, I'm confused," Bruce rubbed his eyes. "You were hired by S.H.I.E.L.D to keep Tony out, but now you're just handing him everything he wants to know? You are a real mystery, you know that?"

"It's hardly the weirdest thing I've done since we've been on board," I sighed, turning my back to the computer. "Remember me getting an impromptu piggy-back ride from Coulson?"

Tony burst into a fit of laughter, standing over my bag that he had moved to the counter. "You jumped on Coulson?"

All seemed to be forgiven at that realization. Bruce muttered something about working with idiots and missing Calcutta. "It seemed like the best way to welcome him back," I nodded, and Tony simply stared at me for a moment before turning back to rummaging through my bag.

"How many frigging lollipops do you need, Tiny?"


	10. Chapter Nine: Headache

**Chapter Nine: Headache**

Tony found my USB and plugged it into his computer while I explained everything I already knew. I told him all about how I originally broke into S.H.I.E.L.D, sneaking onto their base in New Mexico, and getting hired by Fury himself because he thought it would annoy Tony (and Patches lives to annoy Tony).

"What did you do before you teamed up with the soul-suckers?" he asked, not really looking at me but I knew he wouldn't bother asking if he didn't want to know.

"Oh, I made a modest living off of stealing things that didn't belong to me and selling them to other people who didn't have any business having them." He turned to look at me at that, with a look that said 'go on'. "I was a hacker. Codename Lockpick."

Tony stepped away from the computer and stared at me with wide eyes and a beaming smile. "_You're _Lockpick?!" I nodded, smirking, and he shook his head in disbelief. "I thought Lockpick was a dude! Everyone always assumed- I mean… Are you lying to me?"

I laughed at that. I knew Lockpick was pretty famous, but I didn't expect Tony to know who I was. "No, I just let everyone think I was a dude. It's easier to remain hidden when people don't even know what gender you are."

"I loved your work on Hammer Industries," he gushed. "Always hated the bastard. When he was taken down a peg by losing half of his work to a hacker I almost died I was laughing so hard."

I shrugged and sighed with a flair, tossing my hair over my shoulder. "Oh, please, do go on. It's not often I get praised for my stellar computer skills."

He chuckled and shook his head at that. I thought he really was going to go on, but the computer beeping pulled both of us away from our little… whatever it was. "What's Phase Two?" Tony asked, pushing away other files to read that one specifically.

"Back in New Mexico, Fury said something about wanting to make sure it went through. He seemed pretty desperate to keep it under wraps," I explained, stepping in front of Tony so I could see the screen to. He read over my shoulder as I enlarged the file, reading through it quickly.

The door opened, and a very angry Fury shouted, "What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" He moved his eye down slightly to see me in front of the screen with Tony. "Charlie."

"Patches," I smiled sweetly. I'm so fired.

"Kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony answered, moving away from the monitor to stand behind me and glare at Fury.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," Bruce piped up. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And you'll get your cube back," Tony shrugged. "No muss, no fuss."

"What's Phase Two?" I tilted my head and leaned my hip against the table.

Fury glared furiously at me as the door opened behind him and Steve walked in, dropping a huge… gun… thing?... on the table by the door. "Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D uses the cube to make weapons."

"Rogers," Fury turned from me to speak to Steve, "we gathered everything related to the Tesseract." Tony's computer blipped again, and I looked it over before scoffing quietly. "That does not mean we-"

"Sorry, Patches," I cut him off and turned the screen so he could see it, even though he knew damn well what was on it. "Wrong answer. Try again."

"I was wrong, Director," Steve shook his head. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

Thor and Natasha came into the lab then, both looking pissed as they stood to the right of Fury. "Did you know about this?" Banner asked Natasha.

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed."

"Loki's manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

Natasha scoffed at that. "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yeah, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you're a little twitchy."

"What I want to know," I cut in, taking a step away from Tony as all eyes turned to me, "is why the hell S.H.I.E.L.D is using the Tesseract to build fucking weapons? Because I didn't sign up for that."

Fury pointed to Thor. "Because of him!"

"Me?" Thor seemed stunned.

"Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. You know all about this, Miss Merrick." I flinched at that. Shit. He finally figured out who I was. "We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, _hilariously _outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet!"

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled." He looked pointedly towards me and Tony, and I balled my hands into fists.

"People aren't meant to be controlled," I almost growled out. That was a sore spot for me. "The last time someone tried to control people, you threw him in a giant glass cage."

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it," Thor pulled Fury's attention away from me, "and his allies. "It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Steven almost stepped back, probably remembering the war he'd been in and wondering what could be worse.

"You forced our hand," Fury spat. "We had to come up with something-"

"A nuclear deterrent?" Tony stepped forward to stand next to me. "'Cause that always calms everything down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be-" Steve started, but Tony stepped forward again to wave his hands, cutting him off.

"Wait, wait- hold on! How is this about me now?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this?" Thor crossed his arms, and looked almost disappointed at everybody bickering.

"Excuse me?" Fury copied Thor's pose. "Did we come to _your _planet and blow shit up?"

"Are you all really that naïve?" Natasha asked, looking around the room. "S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threats."

"Then why the hell is she here?" Tony pointed towards me. "She's, like, two feet tall. And him-" he pointed to Steve. "He's on that list? Is he above or below angry bees?"

I stepped back towards Bruce, pissed. Pissed at Fury for keeping me here, pissed at being called a potential threat, pissed at Tony for questioning me being a threat, pissed that S.H.I.E.L.D wanted to control people… The list went on, and it was all giving me a pounding headache.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos!"

"Exactly!" I blurted, throwing my arms in the air. "S.H.I.E.L.D likes to pretend they know what the fuck they're doing, when really they're not any better than Loki!"

"HEY!" Thor and Fury shouted at me.

"It's their M.O, isn't it?" Bruce agreed from behind me before stepping around to the opposite side of the table from me. "What are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're- we're a time bomb."

"You two need to step away," Fury threatened, turning his whole body to face us.

Tony slung his arm around Steve. "Why shouldn't he let off a little steam?"

"You know damn well why!" Steve shoved Tony back. "Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Big man in a suit of armor, take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you."

My headache was getting worse with every comment, and their words started to muddle together. I pressed one fist to the side of my head, and gripped the table with my left hand.

Fight, something. Wire, something. Answer, something.

Hero, something. Suit, something. Rounds, something.

"You people are so petty," Thor laughed before turning to look specifically at me. "And tiny."

"Can you all shut up for two fucking seconds?" I wanted to scream, but it came out as more of a pained whimper, and I doubted anybody heard me.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Doctor Banner back to his-"

"Where? You rented out my room!"

"The cell was just in case-"

"In case you wanted to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!" The room finally went silent, but I couldn't even appreciate it because of what Bruce had just admitted to. With every word he said, my head pounded more and more. "I got low," he explained, quieter. "I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spit it out."

"Bruce," I tried to shut him up, but he didn't hear me and I was leaning completely against the table now, clutching at anything that could stop this pounding in my head.

"So I moved on. I focused on helping other people, I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!"

I grabbed something that was cool to the touch, even cooler than the metal of the lab table, and I immediately clutched it closer with my eyes twisted shut to try and cool down my constantly heating migraine.

"Miss Merrick-" Fury started, and I snapped.

"_Don't call me that!" _I screamed, whipping to face him. The room was silent again, and it took me moment to realize what had happened. Natasha and Fury had their guns pointed at me, Steve and Tony held their hands up defensively in front of them, Thor tightened his grip on his hammer, and Bruce stepped away from me. I looked down to my left to see that the cold item I was clinging to was Loki's scepter.

"Charlie." This time Tony was talking, and I picked my head up to look at him. "Charlie, put the scepter back on the table. Okay?"

I wanted to argue, to say that it was the only thing keeping the headache from killing me. "I-I…"

"Trust me, Charlie." He took a hesitant step forward, hands still in front of himself and I could see the fear in his eyes. He was afraid. _Of me. _"I'll get you out of this, I promise. Put the scepter down."

I nodded slowly, and lifted my hand to return the scepter to where it had been before, but kept my hand wrapped around the handle. "If I let go the headache will come back," I whispered, and Fury seemed to lower his gun slightly at that, but I kept my eyes on Tony. He was going to get me out of this. He promised.

"I'll help you. Can I help you?" I nodded again, and he came up to me, placing his hand over mine on the scepter.

"Stark-" Natasha started, but he silenced her by holding the hand that wasn't on mine up in her direction.

"When I let go, you let go." Tony's fingers laced through mine, and I gripped his hand as tightly as I could. "Ready?" I nodded for the third time, and he slowly released the golden scepter.

I dropped the scepter, clinging to his hand, but as soon as the rod was no longer touching me the migraine was back full force. I collapsed, pulling away from Tony to clutch at my head as I curled into a ball on the floor. The computers started beeping, but Tony ignored them to kneel next to me and push the hair out of my face. "You're gonna be okay, Charlie." His voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel.

"Did you locate the Tesseract?" Fury asked as Bruce stepped around me and Tony to silence the beeping.

"I can get it," Steve spoke up.

"No, the Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human-"

Tony turned to yell at the still bickering group. "Can you all shut up? We need a med team in here, somebody call them!"

I curled my knees tighter into my chest as the pounding seemed to shift, sounding almost like a voice. I couldn't make out what it was saying. "What do you want from me?" I pleaded, hoping that if I just did what it wanted it would stop torturing me. Natasha and Fury continued to watch me.

"Nobody wants anything from you," Tony tried to sooth me, but I pushed him away from me.

"Not you!" I shouted, pulling at my hair. "Dammit, just tell me what you _want!_"

"What does who want?" Fury asked, stepping closer to me. "Who's talking to you?"

"_I don't know!_" I cried, kicking the ground as hard as I could. Maybe if something else hurt, it would distract me from the pain in my head. "_Somebody make it stop, please!_"

'Out'. Out? What does it want out from, my head? 'Let me out'.

"From where?" I asked, trying to stand so I could let it out. "Where are you?"

Tony stood with me, and put his hands on my shoulders. "Charlie, you have to tell us who's talking to you."

'Away', the voice commanded, and I pushed Tony away from me to leave the room.

I didn't get the chance to leave, though. "Oh, my god!" Banner shouted, and the room exploded around me.


	11. Chapter Ten: Used

**Chapter Ten: Used**

I opened my eyes to see that I was in the hallway now, thrown through the window next to the door. I didn't know where anybody else was, but I didn't care. Right now all I wanted was to let somebody out of somewhere to sooth my raging migraine. I heard Fury call after me, but ignored it and continued down the hallway.

I came to a set of bulky metal doors that slid open to reveal Loki standing in his cage. "You came," he smirked, and I realized that he was the voice that had been calling me. That probably should have been more obvious, but it was really difficult to think with the eerie voice on top of a killer headache. "Well?" He raised an eyebrow and I stepped into the room, the doors shutting behind me. "Are you going to let me out?"

I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell him to go to hell. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't that easily manipulated.

Instead, I pushed the big red button on the control panel, and the cell door slid open. He stepped out with a triumphant smile and ran his hand down my cheek, the other tucked behind his back, and I leaned into the coolness of his hand, craving the release it promised. "That's a good pet," he purred and pressed two fingers to my temple. My headache vanished immediately, and I collapsed against the control panel with a relieved sigh, tears slipping down my already stained cheeks.

Loki kneeled down on one knee next to me and took my chin in his hand, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Now, I need you to stay very quiet. Can you do that for me, pet?"

Fuck you, I wanted to scream, and beat him into a pulp.

I nodded.

Then he was gone. I wanted to look around for him, but feared that moving my head would make the headache return. The entrance opened again to reveal Thor, who looked down at me. "Lady Charlie?" he asked, but I couldn't reply. My entire body ached- I didn't even have the energy to meet his gaze. "No!" he shouted, and ran towards the cell.

It took everything in me to turn my head towards the cell, only to see Loki crouched at the entrance. Thor ran straight through him and land in a heap on the floor of the glass cage as his brother disappeared into thin air once again. The real Loki stepped out from the shadows to shake his head at Thor lying on the ground. With a wink towards me, Loki pushed the button that locked Thor in the cage. "Are you ever not going to fall for that?"

Thor slammed his hammer against the glass, but it only cracked slightly. The loud bang reverberated in my head, and I mentally cursed him. I had only just gotten rid of the headache, and I would do anything to not have to suffer through that kind of pain again.

"The humans think us immortal." Loki sounded almost bored as he looked his brother over before turning to me, still laying in a heap next to the control panel. Suddenly, he grabbed my hair and threw me closer to the cage door. I grunted in pain as I landed in front of Thor.

"Stop this!" Thor demanded, pounding his fist against the door.

Loki ignored him as he stepped closer to me and used his foot to turn me onto my back. "So simple-minded, these creatures are," he looked down at me with a malicious smile. "So quick to please, with the right incentive. Do you know the best incentive?" He stepped down harshly on my stomach, and I screamed out, wordlessly begging for an end to the torture. "Pain." He moved his foot to my throat, cutting off my air supply.

I gripped at his ankle, trying to push him off of me, but he only pushed harder against my neck.

"Move away from the girl, please."

Loki removed his foot from my windpipe to stand facing the intruder, who I could just barely make out through my hazy vision as I gasped for air. "Coulson," I breathed, thanking whatever higher power was out there for a friendly face.

"You like this?" Coulson continued, gesturing towards Loki with the weapon that looked like the one Steve had dropped in the lab earlier. "We started working on the prototype after you sent The Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you want to find out?"

The Loki next to me disappeared as another materialized behind Coulson, impaling him quickly with the scepter. "_NO!" _Thor boomed at the same time that I shot up from the ground, letting out a strangled cry.

Loki shoved Coulson against the wall and sauntered back over to the control panel and, without another word, pushed the button that sent Thor hurtling towards the earth 30,000 feet below us.

"You're going to lose," a quiet, firm voice sounded and I covered my mouth with my hand. Coulson was still alive.

"Am I?" Loki strolled casually closer to Coulson.

"It's in your nature."

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky… Where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction."

"I don't think I-" Loki was cut off by Coulson pulling the trigger on the gun, sending the bastard flying through the wall behind me.

"So that's what it does…"

I pushed myself off the ground, ignoring the throbbing in my stomach to crouch in front of Coulson. "You're going to be okay," I immediately assured him in a nearly silent, raspy voice. "I'll get you out of here, Phil."

"Phil?" he chuckled quietly.

I shook my head, laughing through the new wave of tears. "Shut up, Agent."

"That's better," he nodded. Footsteps sounded off the right, and Coulson and I turned to see Fury running in. "Sorry, boss. They got rabbited."

Fury kneeled next to me. "Just stay awake. Eyes on me."

Coulson shook his head slowly. "No. I'm clocked out here."

"No," I insisted, grabbing his head and forcing him to look at me. "Not an option, Agent. You still owe me a mission, remember?"

"It's okay." He reached a hand up to hold onto my wrist. "This would never have worked if you guys didn't have…" He swallowed and closed his eyes. "If you didn't have something…"

"Coulson?" I whispered, moving my hands down to shake his shoulders. "Agent?" I shook him harder, more desperate. "_Phil_?"

Fury stood and pressed a hand to his ear. "Coulson is down." A med team ran in, and somebody pulled me back while the others looked him over. It only took a second for one to shake his head at Fury. "They called it."

"_No!_" I shouted, pushing the medics out of the way to grip Coulson. "No, you _promised_ me! You gotta open your eyes, Agent, do you hear me?"

"Charlie."

I whipped around, standing to push Fury back. "You don't understand! _This is all my fault!_"

He seemed surprised by that. "This was Loki's fault, not yours."

"No," I groaned, shaking my head and pulling at my hair. How did everything get so fucked so quickly. "No, you don't understand, you don't _know_!" I shoved him again, and two of the medics grabbed my arms to hold me back. "This is _my _fault! He _used _me, Loki used me!"

"He's the voice you heard," Fury nodded in understanding. "Loki tricked all of us. Nothing that happened is-"

"It is my fault!" I screeched, struggling against the men holding my arms behind my back. "I let him out! I let him out of the cell, and now Thor is gone, and _PHIL IS DEAD. I_ _did that!_"

Fury grabbed my shoulders and bent down to look me in the eyes. "Listen to me. Nothing that happened here was because of you. Nothing. Not Thor, and not Coulson. We will find Loki, and we will take him down." I breathed deeply as the men behind me stepped away, releasing my arms. "We will get him back for this. But I need you to pull it together to help us find him. Can you do that?" I nodded once, and he watched me for a moment longer before his hands dropped away from my shoulder. "Okay. Follow me."

He turned to go back the way he came, and I followed. I couldn't bear turning back to watch as the response team carried Coulson's body away from the detention center.


	12. Chapter Eleven: Payback

**Chapter Eleven: Payback**

Fury and I walked onto the bridge to see Steve sitting at table and Tony standing off to the side, both with a dazed, shocked look plastered on their faces. "Where's everyone else?" I asked quietly, but due to the silence in the room, it sounded like I was yelling. Steve and Tony's eyes snapped to me, but Fury was the one to answer.

"This is all that's left." He took a step forward to throw blood-spattered cards onto the table. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." I stared at the cards, and remembered walking in on Coulson talking to Steve about them being vintage. Steve picked the top one up and lowered his gaze back to the table.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury continued. "Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." He glanced at me as I moved away from him, but just kept talking. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark and Charlie know this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died," I flinched, "still believing in that idea. In heroes."

I couldn't listen to anymore. I walked away from Fury, down the hallway that I had just returned from. I heard somebody following me, but I ignored them. Once inside the detention center, I moved to stand in front of the blood-stained wall, staring. From the corner of my eye, I saw that it was Tony who had followed me here. He moved to stand next to me with his arms crossed, and for a few minutes neither of us said anything.

Then, quietly, he asked, "You okay?" I didn't say anything, and he turned to face me. "Your head, I mean."

After another beat, I nodded. "It was Loki," I explained. "He was the voice. When he touched me, my head…" I moved a hand to the cheek he had caressed and shuddered. At the time, his touch had been the most soothing relief I could have imagined, but thinking about it now made bile raise in the back of my throat.

Tony seemed to understand that I didn't want to talk about it, because he didn't ask me to continue. He simply put a gentle hand on the back of my head, stroking his thumb across my hair. "Okay."

I leaned into his touch, biting the inside of my cheek as the scene from only minutes ago played over and over again in my head. "It was unbearable," I whispered, trying to explain why I did what I did. I don't know if I was trying to convince myself or Tony, but I felt like it needed to be said. "The pain I felt. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe." I turned from the wall to face Tony and found that he was already looking at me. "It felt like… I thought I was dying. And I tried- I tried to say no. But I…"

Tony's hand moved from the top of my head to my shoulder, his thumb sliding softly over my neck as I tried to think of the words to explain my actions. "He told me to let him go, and I did. And he- he killed Coulson," I sucked in a quick breath, turning my gaze to the floor. "He killed him, and I let him. I just sat and watched while he…"

Tony didn't say anything, just continued to run his thumb across the side of my neck, occasionally tracing my jaw, and I gave up trying to explain. It wasn't going to work. There was nothing I could say to excuse what I did, even if Fury told me it wasn't my fault.

"I know what it's like to think you're going to die," he finally spoke again. I looked back up to him, but his eyes weren't on my face- they were watching his hand that rested on my shoulder. His thumb stilled on my neck for a moment before he pulled his hand back and met my eyes. "I understand."

Steve walked in then, and Tony and I stepped away from each other. It was quiet for a minute, before Steve asked, "Was he married?"

I didn't want to talk about Coulson. Leaving the boys to talk, I turned and walked back towards the lab. Inside, I could see shattered glass and a gaping hole where the wall used to be. I grabbed my bag from the counter and backed out, not willing to risk falling out of the Helicarrier. I walked back to the mostly abandoned bridge, and got to work.

Fury was right about one thing, at least. We were going to get Loki back for everything he did. I set up my laptop and started typing as quickly as possible to recreate the tracking algorithm for the Tesseract. While that worked itself out, I reached into my bag and pulled out a cherry Blow Pop. I didn't eat it, though. For once, I wasn't in the mood for sweets. I simply twirled the candy between my fingers as I waited for the computer to find the Tesseract, which in turn would find Loki.

"I see you haven't given up."

I looked over to my shoulder, and saw Tony standing there. "I'm going to kill him."

He knew I meant Loki, and nodded. "Come with me."

"Why?" I glanced back at my laptop, but he walked over and closed it. I was going to argue, but he grabbed my hand that wasn't holding the lollipop, and pulled me after him.

"I know where Loki is." We hurried down the hall, him pulling me along by my hand, to a room that was empty, save for a briefcase sitting on a table. He pulled it open, and let go of my hand to slip on two wrist bands. "We're going after him. Now."

"We are?" I asked, watching as he made some quick repairs to the Iron Man suit.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" he smirked and held the helmet of his suit at arm's length to inspect it. "Steve is grabbing the assassins, and they're taking the quinjet out. You and I," he looked from the helmet to me, then back to the helmet, "we're going to my Tower."

"Is that where Loki is?"

He nodded, making more adjustments to the suit. "I'm going to drop you off there to deal with the Tesseract while I distract Loki until everyone else shows up."

"Good." A beat. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Taking me with you. I thought you guys might not want me to be there. I was prepared to fight you on it."

He chuckled before setting the helmet and pushing a button on his wrist band. Pieces of the suit began to attach themselves to him as he spoke. "You deserve to be there just as much as the rest of us. You may not be able to fight Loki head on, but you're the best hacker I've ever heard of. We're going to need you to shut down whatever Selvig's built to keep the Tesseract up and running. Basically-" he pulled his helmet on when the rest of the suit finished assembling itself, but the mask slid up so I could still see his face, "-while we fight the good fight, you're going to be the one to actually stop the invasion."

"No pressure," I laughed breathlessly. The mask of his suit slid down, and he took my hand in his again, except this time it was cool and mechanical. He led me outside of the Helicarrier where I saw Steve, Natasha and a man I'd only ever seen in pictures- Barton- climbing onto a quinjet.

Tony wrapped his arms over my waist and warned me in his robotic voice, "Up we go. Better hold on."


	13. Chapter Twelve: The Battle Begins

**Chapter Twelve: The Battle Begins**

Flying with Tony was a crazy feeling. Adrenaline pumped through my entire body, setting my nerves on fire and I couldn't figure out if I wanted to scream out of fear for my life or the rush of joy. I settled on laughing as I held my hands out to my sides, and I could've sworn I heard Tony chuckling through the comm he had given me to put in my ear so I could hear what was happening while we were in New York.

For the few minutes I spent with him in the air, I didn't once think of Loki, or Coulson, or the fact that I could very well die within the hour. I didn't think of anything except wind whipping my hair wildly and the cool feeling of Tony's suit pressed to my back.

The ride couldn't last forever though, and eventually Stark Tower was rapidly approaching. "Remember the plan," Tony said, and I nodded.

"Sir," I heard JARVIS through Tony's mask, "I took off the arc reactor. The device is already self-sustained."

Tony didn't respond, instead coming to a stop near Selvig and the Tesseract. "Shut it down, Dr. Selvig," he demanded, but the man had obviously lost his mind to Loki.

"It's too late! It can't stop now. She wants to show us something! A new universe!"

"Okay. Hold on, Kiddo." I held tightly to Tony's left arm so he could raise his right hand and shoot a blast at the cube. The energy bounced right off, causing a loud 'BOOM' that knocked Selvig back and I pulled myself closer to the Iron Man suit. I peeked back at the Tesseract to see it completely unharmed.

"The barrier is pure energy," JARVIS explained. "It's unbreachable. The Mark VII is not ready to be deployed."

Tony muttered, "Dammit," before dropping to the roof of his Tower to set me down. "Do whatever you have to, just get that thing shut down. Got it?"

I nodded, stepping back from him. "Good luck, Johnny Bravo," I saluted him with a small smile as he returned to the landing pad where Loki was waiting for him inside. I turned back to see Selvig still laying on his back off to the side. "You with me, doc?" No response. "Okay, then," I sighed, facing the cube as I turned the comm in my ear off. I couldn't afford any distractions right now. "How the hell do I turn you off?"

I could hear faint voices coming through the glass of the Tower, and I knew Tony was already busy distracting Loki. When I glanced inside, Loki looked over Tony's shoulder to smile at me, and I shivered before looking away. I couldn't think about him right now. "Focus," I told myself, reverting to my tendencies from back when I would spend days in my computer lab. Remembering the lollipop I had shoved into my back pocket earlier, I quickly pulled it out and had it between my lips in record time.

"Time to see what I can do," I challenged myself as I stepped over Selvig to check out his laptop.

I had only been typing at the computer for a few minutes when the sounds of shattering glass made me look away from the screen to see Tony falling from the Tower, Loki smiling sadistically. "Tony!" I screamed, jumping over Selvig to run to the edge of the landing pad. Over the edge, I saw pieces of his suit fly down after him, wrapping themselves around him protectively. Seconds before he touched the ground, his thrusters kicked in and brought him back up to my level. I sighed in relief, and ran a hand down my face.

"There's one other person you pissed off," he told Loki, raising his hand as the blaster powered up. "His name is Phil."

Loki went flying back into the room at that, and Tony flew over, landing in front of me as the mask of his armor lifted to show my his face. "You okay?" he asked.

"I don't know how to stop it," I gestured back to the Tesseract with my sucker before running my free hand through my hair. "Because it's self-sustained I can't just shut it down. I can try to stall it, whatever it's going to do," I turned back to him, one hand holding my hair over my shoulder to stop it from flying around in the wind, "but I can't hold it off long."

He nodded, looking at the Tesseract for a bit before turning back to me. "Okay. Keep it down for as long as possible, I'll take care of the rest. Once it kicks off, I want you to get somewhere safe."

"There won't be anywhere safe as long as Loki's around," I shook my head. "I'm staying right here until it's over," I pointed at the ground I was standing at with the Blow Pop. "So once everything settles down, you come get me. Right here. Okay?"

He raised one hand to touch his metal chest with an exaggerated gasp. "Are you asking me on a date, Charlie?"

I rolled my eyes, glad that we could still banter even as we faced almost-certain death. "If we both make it out of this alive, we can go out on a date anytime you want."

Tony moved a step closer to me. "Is that a promise?"

I raised my right hand in the air, holding his steady gaze with my own. "I solemnly swear to go on a date with you on the two conditions that, one- the world does not end, and two-we both make it out alive."

"I'll hold you to that."

I wanted to stay and talk to him. I wanted him to stay and keep me calm with his witty one-liners. I wanted him to stay.

"Go," I pushed his shoulder before stepping back towards Selvig's laptop. "Save the world, Wonderboy."

He chuckled as his mask dropped down and disappeared into the air. I hurried back to typing out codes, but it was really no use. I could feel the energy crackling in the air as the Tesseract grew more and more powerful. It was only a few minutes before the cube sent out a blast of energy that knocked me off my feet. I looked up from to see a beam of energy tearing a hole in the sky that I realized wasn't a hole at all. "Oh, shit," I mumbled. "It's a portal."

I quickly turned my ear comm back on just in time to hear Tony sigh, "Right. Army."

The things Loki had called the Chitauri started pouring out of the hole in the sky, and I could hear the screams of all the people below me. To my left, Loki stepped out onto the balcony he had thrown Tony off of earlier, smirking at the sky.

Bastard.

With a clap of thunder, Thor (who I had to applaud for surviving that drop from earlier) landed next to Loki and began shouting at him. "Loki! Turn off the Tesseract or I'll destroy it!"

Please destroy it. "You can't," Loki taunted. Fuck. "There is no stopping it. There is only war!"

"So be it."

Loki attacked first, and Thor seemed to only be defending himself. I can understand that they were brothers or whatever- their family history confused the hell out of me- but I wanted nothing more in that moment than for Thor to smash Loki's head in with that giant hammer of his.

While they went at it, I inched closer to the Tesseract and stared in confusion at the controls surrounding it. I could be the best hacker on the entire planet, but none of that explained any of this science mumbo-jumbo. "Stark, we're heading northeast," Natasha said over the comm.

"What, did you stop for drive-thru? Swing up Park, I'm gonna lay them out for you."

A flash of red and gold whizzed by, followed by a handful of Chitauri who crashed into the side of the Tower. "Would you guys mind staying the hell away from Stark Tower?" I complained into my comm as I began sorting through all of the controls connected to the Tesseract. "I'm kind of trying to shut down the cube up here, I lost my lollipop, and I can't think with aliens crashing around me."

"I got you, Kiddo," Tony replied, and I saw him zoom down a street further away from me, the Chitauri following behind him.

"You rock, Wonderboy."

Loki blasted Thor with the scepter, sending him skidding across the balcony and closer to me. No, no, bad Thor! Please don't attract attention to me!

The quinjet very conveniently chose then to come into sight. Loki fired a blast towards the aircraft, which distracted him long enough for Thor to tackle him. Unfortunately, the quinjet was hit by Loki's scepter which caused them to spin out of control. I heard a loud crash, and quickly checked in on them with my ear comm (which I was thanking Tony for more and more by the minute). "Red? Cap? You good down there?"

"We'll live," Natasha replied, and I nodded even though I knew she wouldn't see it.

What I heard next, I would continue hearing in my nightmares for the majority of my life. A deep, primal bellow exploded through my eardrums, and I looked up to see what looked like a flying, mechanical worm come through the portal. "Fucking seriously?" I groaned, and brushed my hair back out of my face before turning back to the cube.

"Stark, Charlie, are you guys seeing this?" Steve asked over the comm.

"Unfortunately," I sighed.

"Seeing," Tony sounded indifferent, but I would have given anything to see his face at that moment, "still working on believing. Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?"

"Just keep me posted. JARVIS, find me a soft spot."

I looked back to Thor and Loki, and saw the blonde god forcing his brother to look out over the destruction of the city. "Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?"

I could see Loki fighting against his brother's grip, and it made me feel the slightest bit better that for once he wasn't in control of something. "It's too late," he yelled. "It's too late to stop it."

Thor pulled Loki into a standing position, his hands on the latter's shoulders. "No, we can. Together."

They stared at each other for a moment, and I stopped working on the Tesseract when I saw Loki stab Thor with what looked like a small triangular-shaped dagger. "Sentiment," Loki growled as Thor fell over. Without thinking, I abandoned the cube and ran over to Thor.

Loki had jumped onto the back of a passing Chitauri chariot, so I kneeled next to the bleeding god. "Hey, you good, Shakespeare?"

"Who?" he groaned, and I rolled my eyes as I patted his shoulder.

"Yeah, you're good."

Thor sat up, recovering quickly. I assumed the Asgardian blood in him also helped him to heal pretty quickly because he was standing even before I was. "I have to get down there and help the others!"

I nodded, "Okay. Okay, yeah you do that. I'll just stay up here and work on the Tesseract."

"You cannot shut it down," Thor looked from the destruction to me. "It would be in your best interests to-"

"No," I cut him off, "see, you don't get to tell me what's in my best interests, okay? Because I may be petty, and I may be tiny, but _I_ decide what's in my best interests. Understand?"

He chuckled at that. "Perhaps you are not so petty after all, Lady Charlie. You are, however, still very tiny."

"Shut up and light those motherfuckers up."

"With pleasure." His hammer suddenly flew into his hand, and he began swinging it in a circle. "Be careful, Lady Charlie."

He flew off, and even though I knew he wouldn't hear me I called after him, "And stop calling me Lady!"

I watched him fry the Chitauri that were surrounding the Avengers, and heard their conversation over my comm link. "What's the story upstairs?" Steve asked when Thor landed next to him.

"The story surrounding the cube is impenetrable. Lady Charlie is attempting to shut it down, but I would not count on her success."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I scoffed, but looking back at the Tesseract I knew he was only speaking the truth. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to turn that off.

"Thor is right," Tony agreed with my thoughts. "We gotta deal with these guys."

"How do we do this?" Natasha asked, and they argued over who would be the one to take out Loki.

"Save it," Steve shut Thor and Clint up, and I could tell he was in Captain America mode. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, and Charlie working on the cube, we just need-"

The rumble of a motorcycle shut Steve up, and I strained my eyes to see who it was, but they all looked like ants to me from this height.

"I've seen worse." Pause. "No, we- we could use a little worse." I marveled at Natasha's rare lack of tact, and wondered who was making her so nervous.

"Stark?" Steve called. "We've got him."

"Banner?"

"Just like you said."

"Brucey!" I shouted, and heard somebody chuckle. I assumed it was Steve, and felt accomplished that he wasn't judging me for once.

"Tell him to suit up, I'm bringing the party to you."

Tony appeared around the corner of a building, with one of those giant worm things trailing behind him.

"Our ideas of a party are very different," I told Tony.

"Oh, don't you worry, Tiny," he laughed. "I'll take you to a real party someday."

As soon as Tony and Bruce-who had morphed into the Hulk- destroyed the giant worm thing, at least ten more poured out of the portal.

"This isn't going to work," I remarked to nobody in particular, shaking my head. "We could take down a million of those things, but none of it means anything if we don't stop them from getting in."

"Call it, Cap." You know things are serious when Tony Stark defers to Steve Rogers' judgement.

"Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?"

"Better clench up, Legolas."

"Thor," Steve continued, "you've gotta try to bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning, light the bastards up." Thor shot into the sky. "Charlie, keep working on shutting that portal. Natasha, you and I stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk? Smash."

Thor landed on the roof of the Tower above me, and I hurried back to where the Tesseract was to try shutting it down again. When I saw Selvig sitting up, though, I rushed to his side and dropped to my knees. "Dr. Selvig?"

"Who are you?" he asked, before looking up to the sky. "Oh, no."

"That's the understatement of the century," I shook my head and helped Selvig stand. "Can you tell me how to shut the Tesseract down, doc?"

Before he could answer, an explosion sounded behind me and I turned to see Loki fly back into Stark's living room, followed by the Hulk. "Enough!" Loki shouted at the Hulk. "You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a _god_ you dull creature, and I will not be bullied-"

The Hulk obviously didn't give a shit about what the god wanted, because he picked him up by the legs and slammed him repeatedly into the ground, leaving him abandoned in a crater on the floor. "God damn, Bruce," I laughed, beaming. "I could kiss you right now!"

The Hulk smiled at me before leaping from the building, and I turned back to Selvig who looked amazed and terrified at the same time. "Alright, Doctor." I pulled his attention back to me. "Now you're going to tell me how to close that fucking portal."


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Promise

**Chapter Thirteen: Promise**

Selvig told me that he built a failsafe into Loki's scepter that could be used to shut down the portal, and before he even finished his sentence I was inside Stark Tower, searching for the golden rod. It had been discarded when the Hulk had smacked Loki around, and the second I laid eyes on it I snatched it up and ran back out to the Tesseract.

"All you have to do is touch the cube, and it should shut the portal down," Selvig explained before stepping back. He was still struggling to stay conscious, and I let him sit down off to the side as I turned to face the Tesseract with the scepter in both my hands.

"I know how to close the portal," I shouted into my comm. "Can you guys hear me? I know how to shut it down!"

"Do it!" Steve responded, and I started to touch the barrier, but pulled back when Tony yelled back.

"No, wait!"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Tony, we gotta end this thing. What-"

He cut me off, "I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it."

"No," I responded immediately, gripping the scepter even tighter with white knuckles. "You'd never make it back out in time!"

"Sorry, Kiddo. I'm gonna have to ask for a raincheck on taking you out."

"Tony Stark," I turned away from the Tesseract to watch him fly closer to the portal, arms wrapped firmly around the nuke, "don't you fucking dare." I shook my head as hot tears blurred my vision, and I wiped them angrily to watch Tony streak across the sky. "You do not get to break your promise to me, alright? You- you promised me that I would be alright. Remember that? You _promised _me!"

He was getting closer and closer to the portal, and I was trying to keep myself from hyperventilating. I had just lost Coulson a few hours ago, I couldn't lose Tony too. I had only known these people for a few days, but they were the first people I had even talked to face to face in years. Whether they knew it or not- whether they liked it or not- they were my family now, and I couldn't lose two members of my family within hours of each other.

"You will be," Tony said. "You will be okay. I will get you out of this. That's what I said, right?" I nodded, and even though he didn't see it, he continued. "That's what I'm doing. I'm keeping my promise to you, Charlie. Trust me, remember?"

"I trust you."

He flew into the portal, and I turned back to glare at the Tesseract. This little cube from outer space was successfully tearing my life apart, and I hated its existence with my entire being- more than I had ever hated anything in my entire life. More than I hated little things like school, and more than I hated big things like the 'family' I had the poor luck of being born into.

"Close it."

I shook my head to clear the thoughts of hatred, hoping I misheard Steve. "What?"

"Close the portal, Charlie."

"But, he could still-"

"Charlie!" he shouted, and I bit my lip so hard I could taste the iron in my blood.

I shoved the scepter through the Tesseract's barrier and it exploded, sending me flying back as the beam shut off, and the portal began to shrink. Thor landed next to me on the landing pad and held a hand out to help me stand. When he pulled me up, I saw the Iron Man suit plummeting to the earth. "_Tony!_" I screamed just as a green blob snatched him to stop him from falling to his death. I turned to Thor and dropped the scepter to grab the wrist of his hand that was holding the hammer. "You take me down there _this instant._"

Thor didn't say anything, he just wrapped and arm around my waist and dropped us down next to where the Avengers had circled around Tony, who was lying on the ground. I dropped on my knees next to him. "Tony?" Thor bent down next to me and ripped the mask away from his helmet to show Tony's face- bruised and bloody and too still for my comfort.

I was going to start screaming at him to wake up, but wasn't given the opportunity before the Hulk let out the loudest yell in I'm pretty sure the history of ever. Tony's eyes snapped open with a start, and he started hyperventilating. "What the hell? What just happened? Nobody kissed me, did they?" His eyes scanned the Avengers before settling on me. "Well, except you, of course, Tiny."

I flicked his forehead and he scrunched his nose, which made me laugh. "You're the most ballsy fucking idiot I've ever met in my entire life, Tony Stark."

He winked. "Alright. Awesome, alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow, yeah? Let's take a day. Hey, have any of you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."

"We're not finished yet," Thor looked up to Stark Tower, where Loki was still laying in his crater.

"Right. Then shawarma after?"

I chuckled and brushed a piece of Tony's hair back from his forehead. "It's a date."


	15. Chapter Fourteen: Separate Ways

**A/N: **A few things before the final chapter of 'Heaven Knows'.

1) Thank you _so much_ to everyone who read this story. The idea just popped into my head one day and once I started writing it, I couldn't stop. So thank you for taking the time to read this, it means the world to me

2) There will be a sequel. I haven't decided on a title yet, but it will be set in the time period between Avengers and Iron Man 3- it will basically be a Domestic!Avengers fic. It'll explain more of Charlie's backstory- why she hates her parents, why she's obsessed with cherry Blow Pops, etc.

3) If the sequel is successful, I will continue on into the timeline of Iron Man 3, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks again! Enjoy the finale.

-Glynnis

**DISCLAIMER: **The only aspect of this entire story that I own is Charlie Merrick. All other characters and plot points are under the ownership of the geniuses over at Marvel. Lucky ducks.

**Chapter Fourteen: Separate Ways**

The Avengers stood in a half circle around the site where Thor and Loki would be transporting themselves back to Asgard. Everybody shook Thor's hand, except Selvig, who hugged him. When he came around to me, he smiled. "Lady Charlie."

I sighed, "I really wish you would stop calling me that. Just Charlie is fine."

Thor chuckled at that, but didn't give any indication as to whether or not he would actually stop calling me Lady. "Hopefully the next time I visit earth, we will have more time to get to know each other."

"I'd like that, Big Guy." We shook hands, and he stepped back to where Loki stood.

Tony opened the case that held the Tesseract, and Bruce placed it in the tube Thor was holding. The tube clicked shut, and Thor practically forced the other end into Loki's hand. Once both Asgardians were holding it, a beam of light shot into the sky, and they were gone with no trace that they'd ever been there in the first place.

"Red," I smiled, turning back to face the only other woman in the group. I wasn't officially an Avenger, but S.H.I.E.L.D be damned, these were my people.

Natasha offered me a small smile and her hand, which I pushed a cherry Blow Pop into, just like the first time we met each other. She actually took it this time, though. "See you around, Charlie."

I nodded to Clint, who I'd never had a full conversation with, but he smiled at me none the less before turning to whisper with Natasha. I walked to the right a bit where Steve was standing in front of his newly acquired motorcycle. "Cap."

"Charlie," he grinned. "So, you're going with Stark, huh?"

I raised an eyebrow. "And Bruce. The three of us are all heading off to Stark Tower."

He nodded, a teasing glint in his eyes. "You know, we all heard you over the comms that day." I knew he was talking about me freaking out about Tony going into the portal. "You two are, uh…" he thought for a second before chuckling under his breath. "You're both very unique people."

"Gee, thanks, Cap!" I said with fake enthusiasm, and he rolled his eyes at me. I offered him a lollipop too, and he took it this time too. Funny, how people only take my candy when they're not going to see me for a while. "Try not to get frozen for another seventy years while I'm not around, yeah?"

"Oh, I don't know," he sighed, twirling the lollipop between his fingers before stuffing it into his leather jacket pocket. "It was so much fun last time."

I laughed and reached up to pat his shoulder. Damn his height. "I'm glad you've finally decided to develop a sense of humor. Catch you on the flip side, my man." I could tell he didn't understand what that meant, but I didn't bother explaining. I would probably just end up confusing him further.

Walking back to Bruce and Tony, I managed to catch Bruce whisper, "-and the Other Guy _will _kill you."

"What are you two on about?" I asked, curiosity peaked. They ignored my question though, Bruce simply smiling while Tony stepped forward to wrap an arm around my shoulder.

"So, Tiny. About the raincheck on that date you owe me."

"Date?" I asked, twisting out of Tony's grip to stand across from him and next to Bruce. "Who said anything about a date? I'm a lone wolf, Stark."

"No, you're a toddler."

"Wouldn't that make you a pedophile, then?"

He stared me down for a moment before sliding his sunglasses down over his eyes. "Shut up and get in the damn car."

Bruce and I laughed as he walked to the driver's side, Bruce opening the door to get in the passenger seat and I jumped over the side to sit in the back. I sat on top of the seat, with my feet in the actual seat, and unwrapped a sucker. "So," I asked, pushing the lollipop into my mouth. "What do we do now?"

Bruce shrugged, and Tony turned back to face me. "I think it's about time you give JARVIS that apology you owe him."

I chuckled, and pointed forward with my Blow Pop. "Lead the way, Stark."

We started down the street, and I leaned back with my eyes closed, thinking. Remembering.

Just a few short weeks ago, I was in my pitch black computer lab, hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D for selfish entertainment. Now, I was an employee of the very people I'd broken my way into, with a brand new family that I actually found myself loving.

I opened my eyes to watch Tony driving, and smiled. One member in particular I found myself loving. I wasn't going to fool myself into saying he was my soulmate or any nonsense like that, no. But thinking back to every worst moment of being with S.H.I.E.L.D, he was always the one there for me. And I was totally okay with that.

"What are you staring at?" Tony chuckled, watching me in the rearview mirror.

"Oh, nothing in particular," I sighed dramatically before sliding down into the backseat and leaning forward to rest my elbows against the back of the two front seats.

Bruce shook his head. "As soon as we get to the Tower, I'm finding the nearest bed and taking the longest nap of my life."

Tony agreed with him, and I snorted. "You two are boring as hell."

"Oh yeah?" Tony questioned, one eyebrow raised. "And what are your plans for the evening?"

"I think I need a new hobby. Maybe I'll invade one of your labs and throw a bunch of chemicals together."

"I'd rather not die today, thank you very much," Bruce tried to discourage me. "I already have to deal with Tony and volatile chemicals, I really don't need you thrown into the mix."

I smacked the back of his head with pursed lips. "How very rude of you, Banner. I'll do whatever the hell I want."

"Children," Tony 'tsk'-ed at us.

"I'm older than you!" Bruce argued.

"I'm 28, I'm not a child," I tagged on.

"Please," Tony scoffed, "you're practically in diapers."

"You know, you're really not helping the whole 'let me take you on a date' case."

Tony held up a single finger. "What I meant to say was, how about we spend the weekend cane shopping for you?"

I flicked his cheek. "Idiot."

"Tiny."

"Fuck you."

"Gladly."

"I will jump out of this car," Bruce warned, and I sat back in my seat. He actually probably would. "Why don't we play the quiet game until we get back to the Tower? Winner gets a prize."

"What's the prize?" Tony asked. "Because I'm pretty sure I could just buy whatever it is."

Bruce thought for a moment, but I was the one who suggested the prize. "Winner gets to ask the two losers a question that they have to answer truthfully."

The car instantly went silent, and I smiled as I laid my back across the seats, watching as the clouds flew by. I assumed the rest of the ride back to the Tower was silent, but I fell asleep before anybody was declared the winner.


	16. What Happens Next

**Heaven Knows-**

First of all, I would like to thank all of you again for reading and- hopefully- enjoying my first completed Avengers fic, Heaven Knows. All of your support means the world to me. Thank you.

Second, the sequel to this story will be called **Alone Together**, and will be posted under the Comics section, under Ironman. Here's the description:

IM3. Family has never ended well for Charlie. When things go wrong, because they always do, she has always run and gone into hiding. It's a tactic that's worked out well for her in the past. When she thinks the Mandarin has killed Tony, however, running is the last thing on her mind. This time, she's out for revenge, and she'll get it at any cost.

If you enjoyed this story, I hope you'll enjoy the sequel just as much. I also plan on continuing with Charlie's character into Age of Ultron.

**More Avengers Stories-**

If you couldn't already guess, I am _obsessed_ with the Avengers-verse, and will continue writing stories for it as long as I have the inspiration to write.

I already have a few more stories planned out and in the works, including (but not limited to):

_**Regular People**_

Related to Heaven Knows. Series of one-shots. Charlie has finally found a family that loves her with the Avengers at Stark Tower, and is excited to get back into the normal swing of things. As normal as Charlie gets, at least. Pranks with Clint, cooking with Steve, gossip with Bruce, girl talk with Natasha, attempting to steal Mjolnir, and so much more- especially that date she owes Tony.

_**Vigilante**_

Post-Movie. A serial killer, nicknamed The Ghost by the tabloids, arises in New York, but gets mixed press because of who they're killing- rapists, muggers and murderers. Sloane has made it her personal mission to take out the 'skeeves' of NY using her own unique set of skills, and gets the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D while doing so. Includes all Avengers. Clint/OC [temporary hiatus]

_**Gods Among Men**_

Begins during events of Thor. Devi doesn't trust Loki. She never has, and she highly doubts she ever could. So when she follows Thor to Earth during his banishment, she isn't surprised to find that Loki doesn't want either of them to come back, and is willing to do the unthinkable to keep them both out of his way- whether they survive or not. Thor/OC

_**The First Avengers**_

Begins during the events of Captain America. Joanne Moore is a lot of things. A doctor, an engineer, co-creator of the Super Soldier Serum, and best friend of Howard Stark. So when she falls victim to radiation poisoning, it isn't long before she starts looking for a cure in the form of the same serum that worked wonders for the little guy from Brooklyn. ?/OC

**As You Can See-**

I have a lot planned for the future, so you don't have to worry about a lack of Avengers fanfiction from me!

I love all of you dearly, and cannot thank you enough for reading my works. I hope you'll enjoy my other stories as much as you've all enjoyed this one, if not more so.

Thank you.

**Heaven Knows Playlist-**

_Prologue_: Heaven Knows by The Pretty Reckless , La Di Da by the Victorian Halls

_Chapter One: _I Don't Care by Apocalyptica , Obsession by Sky Ferreira

_Chapter Two: _Yamaha by Delta Spirit

_Chapter Three: _Gives You Hell by The All-American Rejects

_Chapter Four: _You're Gonna Go Far Kid by The Offspring , My Medicine by The Pretty Reckless

_Chapter Five: _Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy

_Chapter Six: _One More Night by Maroon 5

_Chapter Seven: _Smile by Lily Allen

_Chapter Eight: _Grade 8 by Ed Sheeran

_Chapter Nine: _Let It Burn by Red

_Chapter Ten: _Tragedy by Christina Perri

_Chapter Eleven: _This Is Not The End by Fieldwork

_Chapter Twelve: _Sail by AWOLNATION , One More by Superchick

_Chapter Thirteen: _The Lonely by Christina Perri

_Chapter Fourteen: _Home by Phillip Phillips


	17. Sequel

Just a heads-up that the sequel **Alone Together** is now posted!

It can be found on my profile. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you enjoyed **Heaven Knows**. :)


	18. 3rd Book

Attention Readers:

The third part in this series is titled **It's Not Over** and the prologue has been posted. It will follow Charlie and the Avengers throughout the Age of Ultron storyline. I hope you'll enjoy it. :)


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